Here & Now
by whereistruth
Summary: B/S fic, takes place after series finale. The Shanshu Prophecy could mean almost anything... what happens after Spike saves the world? NOW COMPLETE!!!
1. Prologue Remembering and Knowing

_Once the vampire with a soul fulfills his destiny, he will Shanshu.  He will live until he dies.  He will become human._

            He fought waking much as a small child fights sleep.

            Keeping his eyes closed, he stretched his toes to the end of the bed and reached his arms to the ornate headboard.  These minutes—usually no more than ten of them at a time, each of them precious—were the best part of his day.  Certainly on a day like today, following last night's horrible party with the taunting masses and Cecily's rejection, he needed to relish those moments.

            In that time between dreaming and waking, he has the words.  Fueled by dreams, he has the poetry.

            Darkness, he thought on this particular morning, his brow creasing.  So much darkness to write about.  It seemed as though he'd spent an entire night dreaming of… night.

            A dark woman, beautiful and abysmal in her lightlessness.  How many words could he find for black?  For dark?  But—

            —just before he'd waked, there was light, licks of fire and eye-searing light.  _Effulgent,_ he thought, wincing from the previous evening's memory of Cecily.  From his memory, though, a different voice accompanied the fire—

            "I love you."

            What?  Who was that?  He squeezed his eyes tighter shut, saline moisture leaking out the corners as he tried to see her behind his eyelids.  It struck him that he wouldn't have the words, any of the words, for her.  He didn't have the speech to describe—

            "Buffy!" he gasped, sitting straight up in the huge bed he was nestled in.  Scrubbing a hand over his face, he mumbled in a much different voice, "I wanna see how it all ends."

            He remembered, and in remembering, knew.

            "I am William Bryce," he said conversationally to the empty room, the classy timbre of his voice showing his breeding.  But when he spoke again, the hard edge of the London gutter broke through.

            "I am Spike."


	2. 1 Waking and Walking

            She was happy.

            How could she not be?  For the first time in her life, not counting her brief interlude in heaven, she had the opportunity to be at peace.  She was not the Chosen One, she was not even one of the Chosen Two.  There were countless Slayers now, and she could rest when she wanted to rest and slay when she needed to slay.  Nearly everyone she loved came out of the battle alive.  

            It was that "nearly everyone" part that was killing her.

            They'd driven to L.A., to tell Angel that the danger had been averted, that the impossible had been done.  As Giles had told Angel, "Well, there's not what seems to be an imminent threat.  This plus the addition of countless Slayers should, ah, lighten your work load a bit."

            She stayed in a hotel with the others, shopped and laughed and felt a tremendous sense of relief.

She waited a week and a half before the dam broke, before the questions she'd kept to herself spilled out of her with anger and hurt she didn't even know were there.

            "What the hell was it?"  Buffy slammed the door to Angel's office, shattering the glass.  He didn't even flinch, which somehow pissed her off even more. 

            "It _was just a sheet of glass," he said calmly, raising an eyebrow at the shards on the floor.  "But now I'd say it's a hazard."_

            "What was that necklace? What power did it have that it could… that it could do that to him?"  She planted her palms on his desk and stared into his eyes, looking for any reason to pick a fight.  Any reason to break the impossible quiet that had fallen.  

            Angel felt a lump rise in his throat and pushed it away ruthlessly.  She hadn't spoken at all about what happened to Spike, and no one else really seemed to know.  All they knew was that he was the last one left, and the last person he'd called for had been Buffy.

            Of course he had, Angel thought.  He'd loved her.  The thought made him want to spit, to try and clear his mouth of the bitterness that gathered there, but he continued staring straight at Buffy, his eyes unreadable.  

            "I told you it was meant for a champion.  More than human."  _Neither of which I would actually attribute to Spike, he thought.  "That's all we knew."_

            "It fucking burned him alive!" she exclaimed, shaking her head so he couldn't focus on her eyes.  It wouldn't do for him to see the tears.  She had to know.  "Burned him alive from the inside out.  And he was scared, Angel.  He tried not to show it, and he was laughing through it all, but…"  She shoved the heels of her hands up her face, swiping the tears away.  "He's dead."

            "I know," Angel said, hurting for her.  In a way, he hurt for Spike as well.  Somewhere in that twisted mass of siring and bloodlust, he had been responsible for Spike.  And his death meant one more lost soul.

            _Maybe not lost, Angel amended.  He didn't want to push any harder than that.  Theology wasn't his strong suit by a long shot._

            "He died for me.  For all of us," she insisted.  _He died and rejected my last words to him.  But even though the memory of that twisted like a burning skewer through her brain and heart, she knew why he'd done it._

            If he hadn't, she would have stayed.  Staying, she would have died.

            "I'm leaving," she said.  "I wanted you to know."

            That broke his calm, his monotonous expression and unchanging demeanor.  He stood to face her, now towering over her small frame.  "What?  You just got here.  You're not even a fortnight away from the biggest battle you've ever been through, you're not even completely healed yet, and you're leaving?  Leaving where?"

            Buffy's lips quirked.  That was the largest number of words she'd heard him string together in quite some time.  

            She missed Spike's rants.

            "I don't know.  Well, not exactly.  I'm looking for quiet, Angel, a place where I can concentrate on me, focus on what I want.  Focus on bringing Dawn up and maybe even myself.  Los Angeles isn't that, Angel.  It's too loud, it's too fast.  I was thinking…" she broke off, playing with a pencil that sat on the edge of his desk and wondering if Angel knew how dangerous it was to keep sharpened wood so close at hand.  "I was thinking somewhere in the Midwest.  I want to be bored."  

            It wasn't entirely true, but it was close enough.  She wanted to forget the last seven years, forget any of it had ever happened.  Forget Angel and Angelus, her failure with Riley, her rejection of Spike.  Her dishonesty to Spike.  Her dishonesty to herself.

            God, I'm going crazy, she thought.

            "What about Willow?" Angel asked, hating the note of desperation in his voice.  "And Xander, Giles, Faith.  The new Slayers."

            "They all want to help," she said wearily.  "So… happy birthday, Angel, I brought you an army."

            "I don't want an army," he burst back, knowing she was already gone.  "I want _you!_"

            "I'll say goodbye before I leave," she insisted quietly, and crunched over broken glass as she walked out the door.            

~~~

            It was like, William thought, being torn in two.  

            "What's for breakfast, mum?"  He pushed his spectacles up a little and saw the shocked look his mother gave him.  "Sorry.  Mother."

            "Well, darling, Eliza has some ham on and also a rasher of bacon.  There are biscuits in the tin if you've a need for food immediately."  She patted her hair and moved to the chair at the head of the table.

            _I killed you, the street voice said in his head.  __Killed me own mum 'cause I'd turned her--_

            "William," she said sharply, rapping her knife against the hard wood of the table.  "Aren't you paying any attention?"  Her face softened and she smiled as he looked back up at her.

            _There now, he thought.  _I can see a bit of that demon…_  "I'm sorry, mother, my sleep was… restless.  I beg your pardon."  William's eyes narrowed in distress.  The thoughts he was having were unimaginable._

            They felt like the cold, hard, truth.  Truth was something he'd been a bit too sheltered from in his life, and now that he was faced with a truth so bizarre it was laughable, he didn't know what to do. 

            "I was just expressing my curiosity as to your plans this evening.  Had you planned on calling on Cecily this afternoon?  She looked quite lovely last night."

            _She looked like a cruel, ball-breaking bint, she did.  Lovely like a bleedin' shark is lovely._

"I'm afraid not, mother.  Cecily is—" 

 _A tease only a soddin' blind idiot could love._

"—indisposed," William finished, nearly out of breath with his efforts to control his voice and his thoughts.  And since when was it so bloody hard to breathe?

Since it hadn't been necessary to do so for a great long time.

"Well, William, I think you should take a rest before noontime," his mother said, her brow wrinkled with concern.  "You look as though you were up all night."

_No,_ he thought, neither William nor Spike but finally an agreement of both.  _Only for a hundred and some years._


	3. 2 Leaving and Looking

            "Indiana?"  Angel made a face that strongly resembled a four-year-old presented with peas.  "Buffy…"

            She was sick and tired of his whining.  She was sick and tired of his begging her to stay.  She never thought she'd see the day when she was just plain sick and tired of Angel.  But for once, she could see how one would want to give in to the overwhelming urge to call him a nancy-boy.  Biting her tongue, she sighed.  "I'm only saying this one more time.  I want quiet, and I want Dawn to see snow at Christmastime.  We will visit.  We will write.  We will call.  We will be fine."  The speech took on the cadence of rote memorization, as well it should.  She'd only said the same damned thing a hundred times.

            She had changed.  

            In the time between the school bus arrival of Buffy's motley crew and now, she had changed.  He wished he could say when or what had changed her, but he knew the exact moment.  When he'd admitted to her that they'd known next to nothing about the necklace they'd given Spike, she'd all but shut down.  

            She blamed him.  Though she might not realize it and might not mean to, Angel knew her.  He knew she was blaming him for Spike's death.  He figured one more pointed finger among the thousands didn't make that much of a difference.  But because it was her finger, delicate and irrationally strong, it hurt all the more.

            "We could have found another way," was all she said when he tried to broach the subject again.  

            "We will be fine," Buffy reassured him softly, bringing him back to the moment.  She stepped forward with a hand extended just as he stepped forward with his arms open.  She saw the hurt flash over his face at her gesture and quickly changed her stance.  When she embraced him, he was stiff with the awkwardness of it.  Before he could say anything, she released him and walked outside where her friends waited.

            A hug for Xander, a quick kiss on the lips.  Tears glittered in his remaining eye, and Buffy started the count in her head.  One, for Anya.  Anya whose death made Xander gone to nearly everyone but himself.  One for a death that wouldn't have happened had it not been for Buffy and her mission.

            A hug for Willow and a whispered reassurance in her ear.  "You know, if Kennedy doesn't work out and you can't hook up with Portia de Rossi, you can always come visit me.  Check out the 'Midwest farmers' daughters.'"  Two, for Tara.  Tara who died from a gunshot meant for Buffy.  

            A hug for Giles, and the extra moment to bury her face in the softness of his shirt, inhale the smell that was Giles: the soap he used to make shaving lather and the smell of tea.  She wouldn't cry, she promised herself.  He smoothed her hair down with his big hands like a father, and she added another to her list.  Three, for Jenny.  She didn't even want to think about that one.

            A handshake for Faith, her quick grin that spoke volumes, more than words between them ever could.  In that fast and clever grin, Buffy saw the good times they'd had together, the hard truths they'd shared.  The things about them that had been the same.  Four, for Faith herself and her lost years.  _If you'd only stayed gone, then she wouldn't have had someone to compete with.  She would have been what she was meant to be.           _

            Waves to Wesley, Andrew, Robin, and the Slayers who were still in L.A. 

            Gently ushering Dawn into the taxi that idled at the curb, Buffy took one last look at the sky and buildings around her.

            "Goodbye, sunny California," she said brightly, the chipper tone of her voice belying her thoughts and feelings.

            In his office, Angel put his head in his hands and tried to hold himself together.

~~~

            He couldn't even remember what excuses he'd made to her to leave the house.  It was no matter; she would be out calling on her friends all day, anyway.  Social appearances were important to his mother, and today that was a lucky convenience.

            William walked the streets of London with his head down, calling up memories from more years than he'd actually lived. 

            Over and over again was her, glowing, gorgeous her.  _Effulgent,_ he thought ruefully, a corner of his mouth turning up.  

            _Bloody fuckin' gorgeous, another corner of his mind spoke up.  __Absolutely perfect._

            He couldn't agree more.  He'd been awake for three hours, away from her for that same amount of time, and it was killing him.  He stopped and leaned on a lamppost, pressing his forehead to the cool iron as he tried to rationalize the pain, the great gaping hole left in the middle of him.

            "I have gone insane," he said to himself, taking yet another jab at the nosepiece of his glasses.  Shoving a hand through his mop of curly hair, he resisted the urge to pace the sidewalk.  He didn't want everyone else to know he was insane, after all.

            _Prove it's real, you stupid git, he told himself.  Though he was frightened of the intensity of that other voice, that other _him, _he was fascinated by it.  Fascinated by the fact that the other him was everything he wasn't._

            The other him was completely crass, completely classless, and more likely than not, wouldn't take shit from anybody.  Thinking this, William sighed.  Just several more facts that severely weighed against the likelihood that his memories were real.

            Vampires, demons, witches.  And the Slayer.  Most importantly of all was the Slayer.  If he could prove she was real, then perhaps—

            "Rupert!" William said aloud, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk and causing a young boy with newspapers to run directly into the back of him.  "Sorry, lad," he said kindly, waving a hand.

            "Sorry y'self, ya bloody ijit," the boy threw over his shoulder.  "I don't fancy trottin' down the walk just to have me head stuck up your arse."

            "Well, then you'd better bleedin' well watch where you're goin', tyke, else you'll have yer head stuck up yer own arse," he retorted quickly, the words tripping from his lips before he could even register thinking them.

            The little boy's eyes narrowed at the change and he ran, his tiny feet keeping a steady beat along the cobblestones.

            "Bloody hell," William said tiredly.  As he walked the streets, his thoughts took up the rhythm of his steps, and his mind insisted _Prove it, prove it, prove it,_ with each stride of his long legs.

            Hearing the myriad British accents swirling around him, both familiar and far-removed at once, he thought of yet another voice.

            Giles, talking about the Watchers' Council.  William remembered that he—Spike—had commented once upon the unflagging Britishness of the Council, and Giles had agreed.  No matter what else they were and weren't, the Council was always overwhelmingly Briton. 

            So how did one go about finding the men of the Council?  

            _Get their attention.  The voice was amused, even a little excited. _

            _Why, William thought with some shock and pleasure.  __I know that tone.  I seem to be an attention freak.  He didn't immediately realize the significance of thinking of that other voice as "I."  _

            If Buffy were real—and the memory of her warm beside him, beneath him, the memory of the heat inside her (William felt a blush creep up his cheeks at his wayward thoughts), all those things were too focused, too sharp to be fake—then Spike had to be real, as well.

            "All right, then," he said, wiggling his shoulders as though preparing for a fight.  Shaking his hands a little to ease the nervousness, he cast a glance around him like a rabbit exiting a den.  "I'm a vampire!" he said, only slightly louder than an undertone.

            No one heard.  No one even looked twice at him.

            _Could be because it's ten in the ruddy mornin', you great bloody moron.  If you were a vampire—God forbid, the state you're in—you wouldn't be out in the sun, 'less you were lookin' to become ash._

            At the thought of ashes, William's fingers itched unbearably and he pursed his lips almost imperceptibly, yearning for a cigarette.

            William Bryce hadn't even smoked so much as a single puff of anything in his life.

            "I'm a demon," he said desperately, this time with more conviction.  At the very least, this Council could tell him what on earth was happening to him.  "I'm a great, horrid demon, complete with tooth and talon.  You—you can't see them, but they're there.  Just try and anger me.  Grrr…"

            Inside his head, he heard laughter.

            "Oh go bugger yourself, Spike," William said crossly.  


	4. 3 Fighting and Brooding

            He tried to think of a specific demon name—God knew he had scads in his memory, but now that he truly needed it, could he remember? 

            Of course not.

            "I eat the skin of my victims," he crowed.  "Mmm, yummy."  He ignored the dual feelings of horror and delight he felt while yelling such outrageous things.  The worst part of it was he could taste the blood, taste it thick and clinging in the back of his throat.  It made him thirsty.  

            "A bit early in the day to be so soused, is it not?"  William started at the voice, his eyes careening around for the source of the quiet tones that spoke of education and propriety.  When his eyes rested upon a small man leaning against the wall of a pub, his clothing muted and dorky, William felt a flash of hope.

            "I'm not pissed, mate, I'm bloody well evil," Spike's voice bragged.  "And don't you forget it," he added, the smug smirk flashing over William's gentler features.  Before he could congratulate himself on what he thought was a clever innovation rather than second nature, the man had a surprisingly strong grip on William's elbow and was leading him through the streets.

            "Where in the hell are you taking me?  Let go, dammit, I'm perfectly right in the head, capable of walking by myself, I thank you—"

            "_Sum corpus," the small man said at the back door of another pub, sweeping William through when the door opened._

            "I am body?" William translated quickly.  "What in the bloody hell—"

            "Your incessant nattering is making my head ache and I'd be an appreciative man if you could find it in you to shut your gob," the man said pleasantly, the grip still unwavering.  William didn't have the heart to tell him he wasn't so strong that he needed to be manhandled.  It was all a bit exciting, really, and—

            Familiar.  So familiar.

            "It means 'I am body' when literally translated but we like to think of it more as 'I am but body.'  Only flesh, we are, but we do what we can.  We're not as good as—" the man broke off, clearing his throat noisily.  "Never mind that."  He steered them through hallway after hallway, unerringly and unhesitatingly turning down corridors that seemed to stretch for miles.  Finally, he stopped in front of a door, knocked once, and threw it open with alacrity that William hadn't expected of him.  

            "Theodore, fight," he said tersely, shoving William in front of a middle-aged gentleman who was cradling a cup of tea.  Before William could even begin to protest and Spike could even begin to clamor for a fight, the man had set down the tea and was coming at him.

            Block, punch, turn… Spike knew all the moves, but William didn't have the speed, didn't have the power.  He held his own for all of a minute before succumbing to the other man.  He fell to the floor and scrambled back, his hands held in front of him.

            _Nancy__, Spike sneered internally._

            The man, Theodore, calmly picked up his tea and eyed William's captor with amusement.  "Any particular reason you brought this lad in to fight me, Hamilton?"

            "He said he was a demon," Hamilton said, his voice still quiet.  Despite his demeanor, William could tell that the little man was clearly the boss.  All eyes were on him, and all ears were perked.  "And unless he's a Iuliago, he's not a demon."

            William didn't understand the snickers, but after a moment, Spike did.  "Iuliago… I'm not that bloody clumsy."  The demons were known for one thing and one thing alone—their inability to stand on their own two feet without bringing catastrophe to themselves.  

            "Who are you?"

            "I'm William Bryce, and you're all Watchers," he said matter-of-factly, once again letting his own voice blend with Spike's.  "Or poor excuses for Watchers, that you'd let me into the inner sanctum and hear your little clubhouse secret password."  He snickered and climbed to his feet, feeling better already.  "Is there a handshake that goes with it?"

            What he got wasn't a handshake, but a hand clamped so firmly to the back of his neck that it made his eyes water.  Hamilton stood behind him and spoke in that level voice.  "We're going to need to have a talk, my boy.  I will ask questions, and you will answer."

            "Fine, you friggin' bully," William said through clenched teeth.  "And it may be that I'll have a few questions of my own."

~~~

            "Should we tell him?"  Willow's face was a study in worry as she stared at the data on the laptop Wesley had loaned her.  

            Wesley grimaced.  Though he'd come a long way from the by-the-book Watcher he had been, there were still parts of him that clung to the rules so tightly they squealed.  He was afraid this was going to be one of those parts of him.  "As pleasant as it would be to pretend we didn't unearth this nasty little bit of information, it occurs to me that Angel would like to know.  Not only for his sake, since it involves him in a roundabout way, but also for…" he trailed off, clearing his throat uncomfortably.  He didn't want to speak for the Slayer he barely knew.

            "Yeah, she wanted answers," Willow said sadly.  "But all this is going to do is raise more questions.  And it'll make Angel even more broody."

            "Is that possible?" Angel's voice sounded from behind them and Willow's face instantly matched her hair.

            "No," Wesley said carelessly, turning to face Angel.  "We have some news."

            "And I was afraid today was going to be boring," Angel said, ignoring the twinge in his stomach.  If it was bad news, he'd just get it over with at once.

            "We found out more about that necklace you gave Spike," Willow said.  "And it turns out it was more than just 'Ooh, pretty, look at all the glowy light.'"

            "Well, I figured as much.  So far we're still on stuff we know."  Angel looked at the witch with an intensity that told just how seriously he was going to take the matter.

            "It has to do with Shanshu," Wesley said quietly.  "The necklace…"  He looked at Willow and motioned for her to finish.

            Preferring the unemotional glare of the monitor to the unemotional glare of Angel, she read straight from the archives she'd accessed.  "'The vampire with a soul shall wear a sign of his destiny from which said destiny will culminate.  The sign's power can only be unharnessed by the one for whom it is meant: more than a human but souled nonetheless.'"  

            Angel rubbed a hand roughly through his hair and tried to pin down a single reaction in the eddies of emotion that warred within him.  Jealousy that had only started to rear its head when he'd learned of Spike's soul.  Disappointment that he hadn't been chosen for the honor, chosen for that which he'd always considered his.  Anger, at circumstances and at himself for being so arrogant.  He knew better than to mess with powers and fate.  Finally, most puzzling of all, was relief.

            Angel had known he had no idea how to be human again.  Not the faintest.

            "Spike is human."  That seemed the safest thing to say.  

            "We don't know enough about the process to say," Wesley said.  "But there seem to be two options.  If he became human on the spot, then he's dead.  He would have become human just as the building came down around him."  He gave Willow a sympathetic look as she sighed heavily.  "However, it's a strong possibility that he would be restored somewhere else altogether."

            "We need to tell Buffy," Willow said urgently, her eyes pleading with Angel.

            "Buffy needs peace," Angel retorted.  She'd said so herself, hadn't she?  And how could her life be peaceful with the return of Spike, now a human with a soul and without a monster inside?

            How could Angel's life be peaceful if he knew they were together, both human, both whole?  And if he was human, that meant there could be more.  There could be children.

            "I'll tell her," he lied.  "I gave her the pendant, I'll tell her."  His conscience pricked at him as he turned and walked away but he gave it no mind.  

            It had been through much worse, anyway.


	5. 4 Regretting and Begging

            At first she thought it had to be a tiny town, backwater beyond belief.  After all, who really waved at strangers?  It took Buffy a little less than a month to figure out that it wasn't that the town was tiny—it wasn't any smaller than Sunnydale had been—it was only that people were actually friendly, not constantly plagued by fear, persistently dogged by shadows.

            These people felt safe.

            The best part about it was that Dawn was already adjusting wonderfully.

            "There are boys," she'd said matter-of-factly upon coming home form her first day at her new school.  "Tall boys who like to play basketball.  Basketball players!"  She let out a little squeal and then pressed on.  "And the best part is, I don't think any of them are demons or vampires or werewolves.  This place is so… normal!"

            Kids are resilient, Buffy remembered her mother saying.  But she knew in her heart that it was more than that.  As much as Dawn loved Willow and Xander and Giles, they were constant reminders of things best forgotten.  Though she would have never expected it to be the truth, Buffy knew that in order for them all to heal, they would all have to stand on their own.

            But she didn't want to stand on her own.  In the darkest moments just before the sun began to lighten the sky, Buffy would reach out in her half-sleep, touching an empty, cold pillow.  It was no matter—Spike had always left the bed cool anyway—but it would hit her that he was gone.  She had no one to comfort her.  While she told Dawn everything would be okay, reassured the girl and smoothed back her hair, she had no one to do those things for her.

            _He would have done it long ago, she reminded herself one sleepless night.  She ached to be out patrolling, walking the town.  But she wasn't well-known enough to freely roam the town just yet.  _He would have done all that for you long ago and you never let him.__

            Life in Indiana may have been simple and just what Buffy wanted, but it was also riddled with guilt.  She needed to find something to do.

            Because Giles and Wesley were the last of a dying breed, literally, they had more say in the Council than they could ever have been imagined.  With his newfound authority, Giles took a drop from the Council's financial bucket to give Buffy a leg up.  It nicely covered the down payment on a house and a full set of papers.  She had papers certifying her to teach self-defense and martial arts, papers certifying that she was Dawn's legal guardian, and papers creating a solid credit background.

            And after a month, she was starting to feel that was all she had.  Papers.  If she burnt them, she would have…

            Ashes.  

            Ruthlessly choking back the tears that wanted to form, Buffy started to formulate a plan.  It was time to act.  It was time to live.

~~~

            "He's either telling the truth or he's a loon who guesses very fortuitously."  Hamilton shot a look over his shoulder at William, who sat comfortably sprawled in a chair, both of his long legs stretched out in front of him.  All he needed was a cigarette to complete the pose of relaxation.

            And a pose it was.  He'd spilled his entire story to them, from the time Dru vamped him to the present moment, and what he wanted in return was a few answers.  But the minute he'd ended his story they'd huddled on the far side of the room, Hamilton, Theodore, and a few other crusty-looking blokes he hadn't been properly introduced to.  He calculated he would wait only two more minutes, and then he would have some answers.

            "He's telling the truth," Theodore said, cleaning his glasses in a gesture eerily like Giles's.  "There are too many details not to.  Two souled vampires, one cursed and one rewarded?"

            Hamilton sighed.  "Dual Slayers, one dark and one light.  A Slayer to top all others, to outlive all others."

            "And the changing of the Choosing," another man spoke up.  "I'd say that those three things alone hold up.  That's, ah, not mentioning his vast knowledge about vampires in general."

            "Watch how he moves," Hamilton said as William got up to pace the room.  "And watch his eyes.  He watches us as a hunter watches prey, and he doesn't even know it."  Crossing the room with surprisingly long strides, he drew a cross out of his pocket and thrust it at William.

            William regarded the icon with nonchalance, but Spike recoiled instantly.  As a result, there was a flash of calm on his face followed by his immediate withdrawal.  

            "Stop fucking with me," he roared, throwing an arm out in front of me.  "I came to you for help, not to be prodded like a bloody animal."  As strong as his craving for nicotine was, his craving for Buffy was a thousandfold.  Layered over and throughout that want, though, was another sensation: Worry.

            He'd replayed the last few moments in his mind, telling her to go, thrusting her away from him emotionally so she'd leave him and leave the disintegrating building.  But had she made it out?  Or had she died despite his efforts?  

            "I left a woman I loved," he said, his breath coming in gusts now as he tried to hold back tears.  "I left a woman I loved more than anything else I've ever encountered in my life, and I need to know if she was real.  I need to know if I was real.  And more than that, you are going to tell me how to get back to her."

            That last statement got through the seemingly impenetrable shell of the gathered Watchers.  The façade of calm broke a bit as they began murmuring among themselves and glancing at him warily.  

            "Please," he said, the anguish clear in his voice.  

            "What makes you think we would know how to get you back to her?"  Hamilton was the first to regain his composure.  Checking his cuffs, he sat down in one of the few chairs in the room and met William's blue eyes with unwavering intensity.  

            "So it's all true?"  The hope was stark in his voice, unmasked and unrelieved.

            Hamilton glanced back at the other Watchers and nodded.  "Remarkably, yes."  He tactfully looked away as the younger man let out a strangled half-sob, half-laugh.  

            "I thought I was going mad," he said, shaking his head.  He raised two determined, haunted eyes to Hamilton.

            _That's the vampire, Hamilton thought, tilting his head.  __The man looking at me now is not the same man whom I brought in._

            "I need her.  Help me."

            "Even if the Council could do such things, which they can't, they wouldn't.  Such things are against the laws of nature, the laws of magic.  They change the structure of the world as it is now and the world as it would be.  We do not assist in creating paradoxes."

            "The laws of nature?" With a feral growl, Spike leapt to his feet and wrapped a hand around Hamilton's neck.  Unaided by the supernatural but aided by adrenaline, he lifted the man to his toes using only one hand.  His arm, corded and defined, shook imperceptibly from the strain.  "You'd blather about the laws of nature to someone who's seen hell on earth?"  He tossed him aside as the other Watchers advanced.  "I don't want to hear about your bloody fuckin' rules," he said, his voice low and lethal.  "I want to get back to her, no matter what it takes."

            Hamilton staggered to his feet, his breathing ragged and pained.  "You will get no help with what you seek.  You seek impossibilities."

            "I bloody well am an impossibility," Spike retorted, but the man was already walking out the doors.  One by one, the Watchers left the room, not saying a word.  When he thought he was alone, he drew his knees up to his chest and whispered her name.

            "Buffy…"

            Another voice answered him from the shadows of the deep corners of the room.  

            "I will help you."


	6. 5 Helping and Hurting

"A job?" Willow repeated, looking at Giles. "But she hasn't called or anything—"

"Yes, I'm aware of that," Giles said wearily. He'd be a liar of several sorts if he didn't admit to being disappointed in the girl he'd come to see as his daughter. Out of sheer hubris, he'd had himself listed as next-of-kin on all of her paperwork. When an employer had called him to double-check on her credentials, he'd been pleased.

He'd also been very sick at heart. 

"However," he broke himself away from his own emotions, "She's been recently employed at a women's gym, teaching aerobics and self-defense." He cleared his throat and smiled fleetingly. "I'd say she's overqualified."

Trying to lighten the obviously tense moment, Willow smiled. "I'd say. I got all huffy-puffy when I tried to walk with her to class once." When it was obvious that her effort had failed, she laid a hand on Giles's arm. "It's okay. She's just recharging. I hardly talked to anyone when I went away to England. And with the news about Spike, who knows what she's dealing with."

Giles nodded silently and tried to push down the niggling instinct inside him that told him something wasn't right. Nothing was terribly wrong, but something was skewed. 

Even as he tried to tell himself to forget about it, Giles started trying to pin down the source of his unease.

~~~

Buffy eyed herself in the bathroom mirror and made a noise of disgust. "Dawn! Come in here, I need to ask your advice."

Dawn instantly appeared in the doorway, head tilted curiously. "You never ask my advice," she said pointedly, swinging her ponytail. "So give me a moment, this is really, really exciting."

Buffy glared at her sister and words were unneeded. The message of "Stop being a smartass" was coming through loud and clear. She glanced down at her clothes, wincing anew at the thick black tights and black leotard she was required to wear. "Is there anything I can do to make this better? Less… mime-y?"

"Mimular," Dawn suggested, giggling. "I think it looks good. You look tough." She nodded authoritatively and added, "You'd only look like a mime if you put on some gloves."

"Note to self, no gloves," Buffy muttered. "Well, if this is the best I can do, it's the best I can do." She glanced at the clock on the wall and back at Dawn. "You're going to be late if you don't get going." 

Dawn looked up at the clock and let out a squeak of surprise. "Gotta go," she exclaimed as though the idea had been hers. Swiping a hurried kiss over Buffy's cheek, she ran out the door, hair flying behind her like a flag. "Good luck!" she shouted just before the door slammed.

"I'll need it," Buffy said, smoothing her hands down her sides and taking a deep breath. She was saved further worry when the telephone rang. Still staring in the mirror, she snagged the cordless phone from the sink. "Summers residence," she said lightly, tucking her hair behind her ear and re-evaluating her reflection.

"Buffy! It's so good to hear your voice!" Willow's voice, bright and slightly tinny, flowed over the lines. "I—We—heard you got a job! Congratulations!" 

Buffy heard the undertones, the sadness, the disappointment, and knew she'd let down one more person. She'd worked so hard her entire life to avoid just that, treading the thin line between truth and lies, shunting her own feelings aside for others. She'd worked so hard, but it seemed more difficult and more distant a matter. It was too hard to live up to everyone's expectations for the little things when she knew good and well she'd come through when it counted most.

She'd given up the man she loved in order to save the world. In point of fact, Spike made the second man she'd loved and gave up. What more did anyone want from her?

"Thanks, Will," she said, her voice sounding faraway to her own ears. "I start today. This morning, to be precise."

"It's morning there?" Willow couldn't get over the time difference, though it secretly tickled the dork in her to be able to talk to someone who was experiencing a completely different time of day. It was like… well, it was like magic. "Sorry, stupid me."

Buffy laughed, a little of the genuineness reaching the sound. "Not stupid. It's funny."

"You sound good," Willow said. "Everyone says hi. We were all worried, you know." On her end, she slipped a thumbnail to her lips and flicked it against her teeth, trying not to go on and just bite the damned thing. Habits were just so gosh-darned… habitual.

"Worried? Color me puzzled," Buffy said. "I spent how many years fighting nasties every night and now you're worried?" She started to laugh, then stopped when she played back her own words. How many times had she called them "nasties"? Wasn't that Spike's word?

"We just thought you'd be more shaken up, what with what… Angel told you and all," Willow said delicately. She'd heard Buffy clearly, a little too clearly, in fact. When she'd said "nasties" there had been more than just a hint of the salty British accent in there. Willow's heart ached for her friend and she longed to span the distance that only phone lines crossed.

"What did Angel tell me?" Buffy sat down on the closed lid of the toilet, feeling her knees shaking beneath her. There was something… something there that she hadn't been told but knew anyway. Someone, something, somewhere… _Damn it, focus. "I haven't spoken to Angel since I left," she said woodenly, tasting dread in her mouth like sour bile. _

Silence greeted her from the other end as Willow gripped the handset hard enough to turn her knuckles stark white. _He didn't tell her? Why… how?_ But they were questions easily enough answered. Hadn't she herself been in love before? She was going on three times now. Wouldn't she have done a little fibbing for Oz, for Tara, for Kennedy? Of course. But this… this was bigger than fibbing. "Oh, Buffy," Willow said softly, the sadness laced with pity. 

Buffy gripped one wrist with the other to keep her hand from shaking, and she forced her voice to be steady. "Willow, what was Angel supposed to tell me?" 

"The necklace, Buffy. It had… other powers." After a pause, a sigh, a catch in Willow's breath that told Buffy she was either near or in tears, she spoke again. "It could have made him human, Buffy."

She had nothing to say. What was she supposed to say? She hadn't felt this way since—

Since Joyce had died. She hadn't felt so wordless, so powerless, so completely at a loss as to what to do. _What does social protocol say I do now? she thought mechanically. Nothing. Social protocol didn't cover things like vampire boyfriends getting souls, and it sure as hell didn't cover vampire boyfriends getting unvamped. "Willow, are you sure?" _

"I'm sure," Willow whispered, hating Angel with every fiber of her being just as much as she pitied him. What a horrible, horrible situation. "If you need me… if you need any of us to come out there, Buffy, you know we'll—"

"I need to go to work," Buffy said, still holding her wrist with her hand. "You'll want to tell Angel what happened here. He'll want to expect to hear from me." So saying, she opened the vice grip of her hand and let the phone drop to the cold tile floor.

~~~

"I'll help you," the man repeated, stepping into Spike's line of vision. It was one of the Watchers, a younger man with an incredible mane of ink-black hair. 

"Why?" 

"Because my mother was French," the beautiful Watcher said, as though that explained all. At the puzzled look on Spike's face, he laughed. "Me, I have a soft heart for romance. And if you are actually trying to find your true love—" he shrugged. "Well, then, I have no choice but to help." Extending a hand politely, he stepped forward. "I am Laramie," he said in a lilting accent that spoke more of Paris and lights than of London and fog. "And you are?"

"Spike." The decision came and went swiftly. If William was the man who had been dumb enough to think he loved Cecily and Spike was the man who had loved his sworn enemy, he would choose to be Spike.

William was unimportant if she didn't know him by that name.

"All right, Spike," Laramie said, the name sounding strange and blunt in his fluid voice. With green eyes so pale they were translucent, he pinned Spike with an intense and unwavering stare. "Tell Ramie… how far are you willing to go?"

"As far as it takes, mate," Spike said instantly, sitting up to bring himself more level with the beautiful man. "You just tell me what I need to do."


	7. 6 Trying and Lying

            _It shouldn't surprise me, Buffy thought, slamming a roundhouse blow into the punching bag in front of her with a grunt.  __Everyone, to the last of them, has lied to me when it came to Spike.  And he—  He was the only one in those last years who had never lied to her.  Painfully honest, up until the end. _

            She swung her right leg in an arc and slammed the bag with her foot, timing her next kick to hit the bag just as it swung into its original position.  Right, right, right; pause, left, left, left.  The kicks became faster, the grunts turned into yells, and yells turned into sobs as she curled her arms around the bag and leaned her forehead into it.

            She missed her sparring partner.  No one had fought as he had.

            "He's gone," she told herself angrily.  _Suck it up.  Glancing at the clock on the wall, she stripped the tape from her hands and headed to the classroom she'd been assigned.  She had tired herself out just enough that she shouldn't be a hazard to her students._

            Forcing a cheerful smile onto her face, she entered the classroom.  She tried to console herself with the fact that there could have been more strangers facing her, but it didn't dull the sharp fear that needled through her as she looked at the twenty-one pairs of eyes staring back at her.  

            "Hello," she said, marveling at how young, how little, her voice sounded.  In a habitual action, she scanned the room.  Though she didn't mean to, she was calculating the odds, pinpointing the strong ones and all but dismissing the weak ones.  _It's not a fight, for God's sake.  It's a class._

            A few greetings were returned to her, but most of the congregation looked just as wary as she did.  Hoping to break the ice, she walked among them, standing as part of the group, constantly moving so as to make eye contact with each person.  _Think about leading a group, _she reminded herself.  _You've been doing it for years._

            "My name's Buffy, and I'm pretty new around here, so you'll have to cut me some slack now and then."  She smiled at the scattered laughter and pressed on.  "I'll be teaching you self-defense and also some aerobics.  They sort of go hand-in-hand.  You can defend yourself better if you're in good shape."

            Strength in the young woman standing off to the edge, by herself.  Buffy sympathized with the brunette.  Sometimes isolation was just a fact of life.  

            Weakness in the paunchy middle-aged woman in the back.  But determination in her eyes, and that could go a long way.

            Strength in the—for a moment, Buffy's heart stopped beating.  Tall, lean, a shock of white-blond hair, head tilted back proudly.  But it wasn't him.  Not even close, really, a younger man with the glow of naiveté about him, long, nervous hands, perpetual motion.  Just another all-American guy. 

            "All right," she said, clasping her hands together and trying to compose herself.  "Everybody give your name, tell me why you wanted to do this, and we'll start with some basic stuff."          

            One by one, people gave their answers, some laughing, some quiet and shy.  Buffy kept her ears honed when the loner spoke.  "I'm just trying to do something to burn off excess energy," the woman admitted quietly, shifting her hair out of her face.  Buffy made a note to keep an eye on her.  With every potential in the world elevated to Slayer status, it would do Buffy well to keep her eyes peeled for sisters.

            The young man was the last to go.  His face coloring a bright pink, he grinned sheepishly and kept his eyes squarely on Buffy.  "Coach told me to come in, do some aerobics.  Hopefully work on my coordination.  I'm good with a ball, but…" he shrugged his shoulders.  "I sorta suck at maneuvering."

            "I hear ballet's good for that," the brunette said in an undertone.  When the young man glanced at her, her face turned bright red and she lowered her head again.

            _Uh-oh, Buffy thought, hiding a smile.  __Looks like we might have a bit of blooming romance here._

            So thinking, Buffy completely missed the look the guy was giving her.

~~~

            Ramie, as he was called, certainly had a flair for the dramatic.  He demanded French coffee rather than the standard British tea, broke more rules than he kept, and had the reputation for being the best Watcher in the Council.  His last Slayer had died a few months before, and that was all he would say about her.

            Spike had imagined, uncountable times, how things would go down if the Slayer-- _his_ Slayer, his Buffy—had died.  And just as those times were uncountable, the results were unimaginable.  He knew he could not go on living, even a dead life, without her.  

            He wondered if she felt the same.

            "If the bloody Council can't help me, then how in the hell can you?" he asked the dark Watcher, watching with some fascination as he drank coffee with flecks of coffee bean floating in it.  

            "I know people."  Dipping into the sugar bowl to take a few lumps, Ramie dropped one into his coffee and popped the other into his mouth.  "Or… unpeople, if you will.  Sometimes there is little difference."

            "Unpeople."  Spike watched Laramie indulge in his vice and wished for one of his own.  If he couldn't have Buffy, then he'd damn well find something to smoke.  

            "There's a man at the counter who sells cigarillos," Ramie said quietly.  "I warrant it's not quite what you're used to, but-" he let his sentence trail off with an eloquent shrug.  

            Spike nodded, standing up and looking down at the man who held all his hopes.  "Hang on a moment."

            _Hang on? Laramie puzzled over the idiom while Spike bought the small cigars.  When Spike sat back down, already lighting one, Ramie leaned forward, his cat's eyes glistening in the muted light of the café.  "I have to warn you, sir, what we're proposing to do here… it will take much time, and you will give up much."_

            "Much?"  Spike snorted derisively through a cloud of smoke.  "Listen, friend, I would give up all."  He took another draw and closed his eyes, calling up memories of pain and terror.  "I already went through hell for her."

            Ramie templed his fingers and sighed.  "_Mon ami, that_ could precisely what you will have to do again."

            "Bring it on, Watcher."  Spike's voice carried confidently through the cloud of smoke he'd made, but there was another who cringed inwardly.

            William was afraid.

~~~

            "You lied."  He was lucky her eyes were clear and not blackened, her magic in reign and not loosed in the rage she felt.  She had respected him, their host, respected his wishes, respected his moods.  She had not offered her advice unless it was asked, and she had always given him the benefit of the doubt because Buffy had loved him, then in one way, and now in another.

            But he had betrayed her love, the past love and the friendship he had shown to her, by withholding the truth.  So now Willow abandoned the respect she'd once offered and prayed for the strength to keep her hurt at bay.

            "Beggin' your pardon?"  He was tired, had been on his feet all night long on another case, and the Irish slid through his voice unchecked.

            "You lied to us.  You didn't tell her about Spike."  A fresh wave of hurt hit Willow.  She'd never quiet listened to Buffy about Spike, had never understood the connection they had.  But he had stood by her even when Willow didn't.  Now she was paying for it.  Fleetingly, she wondered if she was feeling sympathetic heartbreak.  

            Her quiet statement slapped away some of the weariness.  His eyes sharpened and he sat up a little straighter.  "Do you think that's what she needs right now, Willow?  On top of everything else, to be told that maybe Spike's human, maybe he's not dead, but maybe he is?  Hey, Buffy, we don't know what's going on, but let me lay out the options for you."  He was gathering steam, ready to plow into more justifications, when he felt a sharp burning pain in his hands.

            Willow was completely calm, completely cool, but she kept the heat focused on the backs of each of his hands, watching detachedly as smoke rose from his pale skin.  

            "What are you doing?" he asked, clenching his jaw and keeping his big hands in place.

            "Making you shut up," she said through clenched teeth.  "I told her because you weren't man enough to do it.  But then again, we already knew you weren't a man, didn't we?"  Tossing her head, she broke the spell and slammed out the door, leaving him with all his pain.


	8. 7 Finding and Seeking

            "You mean it?  You're not just messing around with me?"  Dawn widened her eyes dramatically and prepared to jump and down.  "I can really go?"  In the month and a half they'd been in central Indiana, Buffy hadn't allowed Dawn to go anywhere other than school.  But it was time, Buffy thought, to let her little sister go.  She'd been through so much on the Hellmouth; it was time for her to lead at least a semi-normal life.

            "You can really go," Buffy said, crossing her arms over her chest and trying to keep her voice stern.  What she really wanted to do was laugh, to show how happy it made her to see her sister overjoyed.  No matter what had happened, how she'd came or where they'd been together, there was no one Buffy had left whom she loved as much as Dawn.  "But…"

            Dawn groaned.  "The words of doom," she said, flopping onto the couch.  "But what?"

            "But I have to meet him first.  And he has to pick you up while it's still daylight outside.  And you have to take the cell phone."  Buffy pressed her lips together, trying to stem the flow of rules that wanted to pour from her mouth.  "Anything happens, you call me."

            "Yes, ma'am," Dawn said, sketching a mock salute and hopping from one leg to another.  It would be her first real date with a guy who wasn't—well, she hoped—any sort of prowling "beastie".  Rubbing a hand absently at the ache in her chest, Dawn's Cupid-bow mouth turned into a frown.

            She missed Spike.

            It wasn't something she talked to Buffy about, because she'd heard her sister crying at night, weeping herself to sleep in the wee hours of the morning.  When the Slayer finally got to sleep, she called out for him.  So Dawn kept her mouth shut, knowing whatever she felt was fractional compared to her sister's suffering.

            "Well, what're you waiting for?" Buffy asked, shooing at her sister.  "Go get dressed so I can get ready for work."  As her sister scampered away, Buffy concentrated on her work for the evening.

            The class had grown from twenty to thirty people, and each class brought new questions, new challenges, and new tests of Buffy's self-control.  She tried to avoid sparring with her pupils, but it wasn't always avoidable.  

            After seeing Dawn and her lanky, basketball-playing date off with a smile, Buffy started the walk to the fitness center, pausing occasionally to stretch.  She was stopped, one leg stretched lithely over a fire hydrant, when she heard steps behind her.  More out of instinct than actual fear of harm, she whirled to face whomever was approaching her, hands in the ready position, feet splayed for balance.

            "Miss Summers!"  The girl stepped back, also falling into a ready position.  "Buffy."

            "Kelly!"  Buffy straightened, brushing at the skirt she'd thrown over her leotard as she looked at the loner from her evening class.  She wondered if there was any way to make her movements seem like something more casual, but worried about it less when she saw Kelly making the same struggle.  

            "Sorry," the girl mumbled, pushing her dark, curly hair out of her face.  "It's just—"

            "Instinct," Buffy finished for her.  Curling her fists until her fingernails bit into her palms, Buffy went out on a limb.  "Have they given you a Watcher yet?"  _More to the point, genius, are there even enough Watchers alive to deal with all the Slayers now?_  But she was too busy watching the girl's reaction to worry about logistics.

            Kelly's eyes flew to hers, large and dark and painfully easy to read.  Eyes of a girl who didn't understand what was happening to her, eyes of a girl who was afraid she'd always be alone.  "You're really her, then.  You're really _the Slayer."_

            "No," Buffy said, walking so the girl would follow her.  "I'm really _a_ Slayer, and I'm guessing you are, too."

            "But…"  Seeing her teacher's look of discomfort, Kelly bit her tongue and kept it simple.  "I guess I am.  I got this letter, you know?  Instead of a Watcher, because—"

            "They're still rebuilding the Council.  I figured."  She wondered how long it would be before Giles would be called back, and Wesley, to recoup and plan.  The slice she felt in her gut wasn't sadness, though, as much as it was regret.  It was almost as though they, especially Giles, were already gone to her.

            Kelly wanted to say more, but couldn't.  She'd spent weeks and weeks alone, breaking things on accident, wanting to pick a fight for the sake of fighting, just to get that horrible feeling out of her system.  And then finally, like a true Gen-X-er, she'd started surfing, ducking in and out of chatrooms and finally settling in with an ultra-exclusive mailing list of girls who had the same problem.

            Girls who were Slayers.

            And eventually, the rumors starting seeping through about girls in California, led by a Slayer who made the rest of them look like babies carrying candy.  A Slayer who had lived longer than any other before her and who had a band of people so loyal they could not be broken.  Rumor even had it she had a pet vampire of sorts.

            But this woman, the aerobics instructor—this woman was a loner who had no one other than her little sister, so Kelly had shoved the suspicions out of her mind even as she watched her self-defense teacher do things that were impossible when she thought no one was looking.

            "I have so many things I want to ask you," Kelly finally confessed as they neared the fitness center.  She put a hand to her forehead and groaned.  "That sounds so bad.  You know, I'm just so confused."  Shocked at the tremble in her voice, she shook her head.  "Never mind."

            Buffy put a hand to the girl's arm and thought of her introduction to Sunnydale, the strange flip from popular girl to troublemaker, the feelings of solitude even when she was surrounded by people.  "My sister's out on a date tonight.  If you want to come back with me, have a cup of—" Did she even have anything in the house?  "A cup of anything, you're more than welcome."

            Kelly nodded enthusiastically then halted just outside the classroom door.  "Doesn't your sister know?" she whispered.  

            Buffy felt a genuine grin spread over her face as she pushed open the door.  "Boy, does she ever."

~~~

            "I don't understand why you're making me do this," Spike groused, flipping through a book.  "I know most of this shite already."

            "True though that may be, I need you to know your stuff," Laramie said, pacing the room.  He hadn't yet told his new friend the details as to what was going to happen, the only way to accomplish what he was asking.  He figured they'd take care of the small details first and let the big ones… sort themselves out.  "I'm training you.  Don't you want to be able to find her as soon as you make it back?"

            "Bloody hell, you sodding fruit!"  Spike pushed the large book away from him, drained and angry.  He spent mornings and nights convincing his mother he was okay, he was only William and spent his days convincing Laramie that he knew just as much if not more than the dark Watcher.  He was getting fed up.  He was feening for the Slayer.  "Of fucking course I want to find her as soon as I get back, Ramie.  I want to find her now.  I want to find her yesterday.  In point of fact, I'd like never to have left her at all!"  Shaking, he sat back in the chair and let out a shaky breath.

            "Do you think I don't know what it's like?"  Ramie sat down across from him, his black hair flowing around his shoulders.  "William—"  
            "Don't call me that."  It made things too hard.  Had she ever called him by his name?  Why couldn't he remember?  

            "Spike," Ramie corrected, also understanding that particular pain.  "I want you to listen to me, because I will only tell you this once.  We do not have much time."  He had explained to Spike as best he could that time was variable between realities.  Between the reality where William lived on and the one where he wreaked bloody havoc, time was completely unpredictable.  So, ten minutes could have passed for Buffy.  Or ten years.

            It didn't matter to Spike.  If he found her when she was 75 and doddering, he would take care of her.  She would still shine, and he would still die for her.  A million times over, even if she only had minutes left to live.  

            "I understand you.  I know how you feel.  I know how you hunger to be next to her, and hunger to avenge every wrong that has been done to her.  That you ache to protect her, I know.  It kills you not to know.  It kills you to think she's moved on."  Spike started to lunge across the table and Ramie stopped him with an upraised hand.  "Because to love a Slayer is unlike anything else."

            Spike's anger and hurt dimmed in comparison to his confusion.  "You?"  

            Ramie rubbed his eyes and tried to push the pictures away, push the sounds and feelings away.  But he would share to help this man do what he could not.  "Yes.  I was young, William, and callow.  I thought I could love my Watch and protect her, guide her at the same time.

            "I could not, and because I could not, I watched her die.  I watched her light extinguished by one such as you were."

            "I'm sorry," Spike rasped, tasting smooth skin under his lips and wincing.  "I'm sorry, Laramie."

            "I would forgive you did I not understand you, sympathize with you.  For loving a Slayer means everything, wanting to consume her, belong to her, make her belong to you.  And even a vampire can see that light, be consumed by that strength.  A Slayer is like no other."  He took a drink of his ever-present coffee and vowed to finish his tale.  "And I did everything I could to overcome my grief.  I became the rogue Watcher, the dark one who breaks all the rules.  I was not always Laramie, Spike."

            Understanding dawned on Spike and he nodded.  "Laramie… he who weeps for love."  

            "It seemed a fitting name to choose.  The man I was before Laramie is dead.  And so not only do I understand your impatience with me, I understand _both_ of you, Spike and William."

            As he turned his back to an amazed Spike, he added, "I agreed to help you both."


	9. 8 Evading and Evaluating

            They all went their separate ways, and he hadn't expected anything else.  After all, what had he done to deserve their loyalty?  And they all had good reasons to go, to leave him with his self-contempt and guilt.

            Giles and Wesley were headed back to England to rebuild the Council, to regroup and gather their sources.  They had a lot of Watchers to find and a lot of girls to help.  

            Willow, Kennedy, and Xander moved into an apartment not far from Angel's offices.  Though the distance was short, it may as well have been a million miles away.  He had earned their mistrust in the beginning, and had reminded them of that with his constant edginess, his lying, his selfishness.

            One by one, they all trickled away until the only members of the Sunnydale crew left were Faith and Robin.  Angel refused to lie to himself.  He understood that Faith stayed because she felt she owed him and Robin stayed because he hated Spike.  He understood Angel's bitterness, Angel's shielding of Buffy.  Besides, where Faith went, the thoroughly whipped Slayer's son went.

            Angel found himself with a decision to make.  The worst part of it was, he'd have to make it on his own.  With a heavy sigh, he picked up the telephone.  With each call he made, the introductory message was terse, quiet, and identical.

            "It's me.  I need you to keep your ear to the ground."

~~~

            "Forget trying to get my face clear, we're not boxing here," Buffy panted, spinning around and clipping Kelly's ear with a foot.  "Make me uncover my chest."

            "I'll just ask Paul to do that," Kelly grunted, swinging her sweaty hair out of her face.  

            The comment caught Buffy off-guard and she did, indeed, lose her strong defensive stance.  "What?"

            Kelly stopped circling and sighed.  It was hard to stop all that rushing adrenaline.  "Oh, come on.  Like you haven't seen the way he looks at you.  He sits in the back of the class and gawks like a fool."  And you're so jealous it colors the room green, she added mentally.  The big college basketball player was cute, and frighteningly enough, smart.

            Buffy shook her head, not only indicating that she hadn't seen anything, but also to deny the fact.  She didn't want anyone to be interested in her.  Not now.  Maybe not ever again.  Not when there was some hope—"I think you're hallucinating, Kel.  But it's okay, we've all been there."

            Attempting to tamp down the lump that had lodged in her throat, Kelly pushed on.  "Why not?  He's cute, he's available, he's interested in you.  You're cute, you're available…" she trailed off, raising her eyebrows.

            "I'm not interested," Buffy snapped, unwrapping her hands with jerky motions.  "I'm not even really available."  She gasped, covering her mouth with her hand.  She hadn't meant to say it out loud.  It made it too real, and making it real, made her sound crazy.  

            She was waiting for a dead man in more ways than one.

            "So it's true."  Kelly usually kept the rumors and half-truths to herself, preferring to be friends with Buffy rather than interrogate her.  But this particular rumor had smacked of the truth, and Little Sis had mentioned Spike enough to make Kelly sure of the validity.  "There _was_ someone at the very end.  The vampire."

            Buffy swung out without warning, less out of anger than out of self-preservation.   She couldn't listen to much more of this.  Kelly jerked back quickly and was on the move again as Buffy spoke.  "Was I really dumb enough to think you were shy?" she said, blocking Kelly's return blow.  "Because I gotta say, you're just mostly nosy."  She laughed through the pain shooting through her, from head to toe and back again.  _Don't make me tell you it's my fault he's dead, a tiny, cowardly voice inside her begged.  _Please, don't_.  She stopped moving again and sat on the floor to call it quits.  "Kelly, for real, have you ever even seen a vampire?"_

            Kelly scuffed a foot along the ground and mumbled something.  Nonplussed, Buffy stared at her.  "What was that, Kelly?"

            "No, I have not," she enunciated, sitting across from the older girl.  "I'm sorry I prodded," she softened her voice.  "Forget I asked."

            If she'd meant to guilt Buffy into revelation, it wouldn't work.  "Forgotten," Buffy said promptly, taking the out as it was offered.  "You want something to drink?"

            Kelly bit back a sigh and followed Buffy into the kitchen.  "I'd love something."

            Later, when Kelly had gone home and Buffy was left with a silent house and a sleeping Dawn, she had too much time to think.  Too much time to wonder.  

            She'd came a long way, if she said so herself.  Xander, Willow, and Kennedy had came for a visit, and apparently she'd been normal enough.  They had, after all, went back to L.A. without much complaint or insistence that she come back.            

            Maybe they just didn't care.

            But she was settling into her life, such as it was, and Kelly's arrival and random comments staved off the boredom. 

            Buffy couldn't decide whether that was a bad thing or a good thing.  For now, however, it had her stirred up, thinking about Spike.  She curled up under a thin sheet on her bed, the whirling fan a concession to the Midwest humidity that plagued them all, and closed her eyes.

            It was easy, too damned easy even after three months, even after 97 days and four hours, to call up his touch.  Things had been… so bad for them, so strange and dark and bad in the beginning, but even in the moments where they were bound together like animals and little more, she'd known.

            She'd known it was unique from the first moment.  That night in the demolished house had nearly destroyed her, as well, in more ways than one.

            Knocking down some walls was easy.  Knocking down your own was hard. 

            Thinking of him, of him moving inside her and her response, Buffy guided her hand down to brush at her body, to move down her thighs.  Had it been so long ago that she'd felt this desperate need to feel something?

            Finding no solace in the route she was taking, she curled her fingers into the sheets and cried herself to sleep for the first time in a week and a half.

            _Maybe next time I'll make it a little longer, she thought just before slipping into dreams._

~~~

            "What if I told you I didn't want you to do this?"  Laramie swept back his hair, pacing in the Bryce foyer.  "That I didn't want to tell you what you had to do?"

            Spike glanced at the looking glass in the vanity across from him and found himself momentarily transfixed.  It was a hard thing to get used to, a reflection.  Hard to get used to being without, and hard to get used to having.  _When did life get so bloody weird?_

            "I'd make you tell me," he told his only friend wearily.  "I'd kill you if I had to, Ramie.  For her, I would even do that."

            "I know you would."  It didn't bother him at all.  He was bothered more by the attachment he had formed and the doubts that came along with it.  Could he let this man do what had to be done?  Could he stick to the conviction that had prompted him to help in the first place?

            "For fuck's sake," Spike burst out, "Just tell me what I have to do, will you?"  He'd considered just going out and getting himself vamped and then waiting for Buffy to be born, waiting for her to come around.  But it wouldn't work.  The realities were too different, it was too chancy.  He would not take risks when it came to her.  Not now.  

            "How important is your soul, William?"  Ramie used his given name intentionally, knowing what sort of reaction it elicited, and knowing just what part of the man he would reach.  "How much is it worth to you?"

             Spike was stricken uncharacteristically speechless.  Was it to come down to this, after all?  Getting vamped and taking his chances?  "It's worth a lot to me," he said quietly.  "But it's not as worth as much as her."  He'd only regained it for her, anyway.  He'd lived quite merrily for many years without it, until she came along.  

            "All right, then."  Ramie's shoulders sagged visibly and previously unseen lines carved themselves into his mouth and around his eyes.  "No more waiting, _mon__ ami.  Before we go, I have something to give you."  With no explanation, he handed Spike a letter sealed with thick, blood red wax.  "Open it some other time.  For now, let us go."  Torn between excitement and fear, William took one last, longing look at his home._


	10. 9 Running and Hiding

            Hands seeking her in the dark, warm and alive, gentle and tender.  Two men, heads bent together, close in conversation, conspiring in things best left unseen.  Sweet-smelling cigar smoke drifting around them.  One looks up, eyes shockingly blue in the midst of the haze, sweetly blue with his sandy hair.  She realizes what he means to do and calls out to him—

            "Spike, no!"  Buffy sat up in bed, her sheet clutched to her chest, head clouded with sleep and confusion.  What had made her call out his name?  She'd been dreaming of—

            Two men, that's all she knew, and neither of them were Spike.  But it seemed as though they were all Spike these days.  Rather than dulling with time, everything seemed to be sharpening to a point so fine as to impale her without resistance.  Running her hands through her hair, she looked at the clock.  2 A.M.  Still dark outside.  She needed no more invitation than that.  Slipping into jeans and throwing a denim jacket over her camisole, she headed out of the house, stopping only to check on Dawn.  

            "Be back soon, baby," she promised her sleeping sister in a whisper.

            The town was tomb-silent, the dark only occasionally interrupted by the blinding slash of headlights, the silence occasionally split in two by the far-off thumping of someone's car speakers.  There were no screams, no cries for help, but Buffy pressed on.  Did it make her a bad person to hope for trouble?

            She kept her steps slow and measured, her eyes roaming about for any sign of… anything.  One block passed by without note, and her steps quickened.  Two blocks, and the only signs of life she'd seen were a cop and a man arguing heatedly over a cell phone by his car.  

            By the third block she was running, running as she hadn't in months, letting her hair stream behind her and her lungs fill with humid night air.  Her legs carried her as though someone were chasing her, her feet beating an even tattoo on the pavement below her.  She didn't stop until she reached the riverfront, water stretching out on both sides, sparkling with rippling moonlight.

            She let her eyes skip to the sky, her head tilted back, her mouth hanging just the tiniest bit open. 

            She hadn't taken much time to look up in her life.  If she looked up, she was liable to trip and fall.  If she looked up, it left her throat open for the kill.  _When did life get so bloody weird? she wondered, hugging herself for contact more than for warmth._

            Setting her sights on a star, she began to chant under her breath.  "Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight."

            Dropping her head and letting a single tear fall, she called herself an idiot for wishing for the impossible.

            As she turned to go home, she regretted that no one was following her.

~~~

            The two men walked in silence, each intent on their own thoughts.

            William hadn't left any word for his mother.  What was he supposed to say?  "Sorry, Mum, but there's this thing with this girl and being a vampire… have a nice life!"  So he'd leave her to make explanations, and hopefully, to socially cash in on the intrigue of having a missing son.  He figured he'd be more admired if he were gone, anyway.  He didn't know what was about to happen, how was he supposed to tell anyone else?  

            A large part of William felt it would be best at all costs to just leave his mother.  The last time—the other time—he had left, he tried to bring her along and consequently was forced to kill her.  

            Laramie thought of his own Slayer, the only Slayer he had been assigned to.  He knew he would be assigned no other, but rather allowed to stay in the Council to hunt the "others."  Those others who crept in the night and hid in the shadows.  The Council used his rage and allowed him to take out his vengeance because it served them well.  His Watching days were officially over. 

            But he still watched his Slayer.

            "Stop," he told Spike, holding out an arm to halt his friend's long gait.  "Someone—something— is here."

            Spike tensed, suddenly alert, wondering why he hadn't noticed it.  The street was quiet, the many alleyways branching off of it bathed in dark and swimming with shadows.  It was a perfect place to hunt.  

            Ramie heard her before he saw her, the low, feline growl that was more playful than predatory.  She slipped out of the shadows, not yet in game face but growling nonetheless.  The demon suited her so well that it didn't even need to change its face to make an appearance.  Her dark red hair was arranged into innumerable complex twists on her head and her dark eyes were large, absorbing the gloom.

            "Ekaterina."  Laramie said no more than her name, his large, wide-palmed hand reaching out toward her, then fluttering to his side.  "Katya…" the nickname fell from his lips, dampened to silence by the mist in the air.

            _Oh, bugger, Spike thought, seeing the look on the Frenchman's face.  __Anything but this, you bloody fool._

            "Hello, Human.  I did not realize it was you, or—" the beauty shrugged eloquently as her husky, Russian voice faded off.  "I much like your friend here," she added, tilting her head and approaching Spike.  

            "Ramie," Spike rasped, shaking his head.  "Say this isn't her."  But it had to be.  She was young, no more than eighteen, and her way of moving was that of a Slayer.  She prowled instead of walked, targeted rather than stared.  All the while, her tongue darted out with tiny, catlike strokes at her lips and her body was held combatively rather than seductively.  

            "_Mon ami," Ramie shook his head, fighting back tears.  "I am sorry that I did not tell you."_

            "Perhaps you did, I just wasn't listening."  Spike stepped forward, feeling no fear as he stared down at his friend's former love, the Slayer who had been turned into what she hunted.  He had no doubt she was a threat, an enormous one.  A vampire with knowledge of a Slayer's life was fatal, and Laramie had let her live.  

            Spike could no longer doubt that Ramie understood love eternal and the pain that accompanied it.

            "Well, love," he said softly, watching the girl's eyes flicker chartreuse.  "You waitin' for somethin' or do you like to toy with your food first?"  

            He didn't know what he expected.  He wanted to test her, to push her, for his friend's sake.  He had a feeling she wouldn't feed in front of Laramie.  No matter what her demon might have been, she had been steeped in her love for Laramie before her death.  Spike had good reason to know that many human attributes could survive the turning.  

            Her eyes narrowing, Ekaterina pushed Spike.  She did not do it out of violence, however.  If she had, he would have been thrown into the wall behind him.  Instead she pushed him with her fingertips, small teasing shoves.  She lowered her head slowly, her eyes never leaving his and never letting the demon to light.  As she neared his skin, her nostrils flared and she stumbled back.

            "_Ty__ zalupnul_!" she hissed, wiping a hand over her mouth.  "You cheater!  What kind of thing is this that looks like a human and smells like a vampire?"  She dug her fingers into his arm as if to test the flesh there and hissed again.  "You are some sort of…" she threw her hands in the air, at a loss for words.  "Freak," she spat.  

            "Oh, and that's not the pot callin' the kettle black, love."  He wanted to alleviate the situation, but he saw Ramie's face was growing paler by the second.  "This is a good dance, cutie, but I'm afraid I'll have to bow out."  So saying, he grabbed Laramie's arm and dragged him down the street, not knowing or caring where they were going.

            She did not follow them, but a name whispered along the breeze after them.  

            "Alain…"

            Laramie winced at his given name and kept his head down.  "We're going left up here," he told Spike, dragging his feet as a man wounded.  When Spike said nothing, the Watcher stopped and spoke quietly.  "You must think terribly of me," he said, leaning his head against a wall, the hazy moonlight and streetlights reflecting off the tears running down his face.

            "How could I?  I couldn't have killed her, had I been you."  Flicking his barely-smoked cigarillo to the side, he blew a plume of smoke into the air.  "Not even if she asked me to," he added.  Seeing the cringe that brought forth from Ramie, he nodded.  

            "Well," Laramie said, straightening and shaking his shoulders.  "That fulfills my weekly encounter with my Katya.  I am sorry you had to meet her."

            "I'm sorry you had to give her up," Spike returned.  He shifted his weight from foot to foot, torn between comforting the man who had comforted him and pressing onward.

            As though attuned to Spike's thoughts, Laramie turned and slammed a clenched fist to the seemingly blank wall.  "Tenfold times three, threefold times ten, the Hub is where it begins and where it all ends.  If I wish to speak, to entreat, to see, I shall tell the Hub who I may be," he chanted.  Inside the wall, a voice spoke.

            "Who's standin' out there?"  It took Spike only a moment to identify the accent as Brooklyn, as thick and attitude-laden as any New Yorker he'd meant in his stint there.  Puzzled, he shot Ramie a look.

            Lowering his voice, Laramie rolled his light eyes.  "He's different every week, in looks, voice, mannerisms.  He has the whole world to draw from, so he tends to have a short attention span."  Raising his voice again, he leaned his head to the brick.  "It is Laramie… Alain Lewiston."

            In one moment the wall was solid and clear, and in the next Ramie and Spike stood in a large room bustling with music and activity.  A young woman dressed in clothing that would not even be dreamed of for another few decades danced onstage, winking at customers.  Directly in front of them sat a corpulent man, resplendent in a well-cut white suit and gleaming silver cufflinks.  

            Spike's head was reeling.  _How easy it must be for Ramie,  he_ thought, _who can regard these things merely as wild and weird.  But for me…  _He was looking into a 1920s nightclub, complete with bootleg liquor and flappers.  He once more felt, acutely, the two halves of himself regarding one another, and then the fat man sitting before them broke his thoughts.

            "How can I help you boys?"


	11. 10 Watching and Waiting

            It had been a hellishly long day, and he knew from experience what was "hellish" and what wasn't.  He'd gotten no rest in the past few days, spending night hours doing precious footwork and daylight hours either underground or on the telephone.  He was still trying to figure out how, precisely, it was possible for a dead man to have a headache when the phone rang for the hundredth time.

            "Angel Investigations," he answered, thinking _Someone__ please come and help the helpless right here_.  He stifled a yawn and listened to the voice on the other end.

            "Someone's summoned the Hub.  You told me to let ya know if anything different was goin' on and—"  There was a pause on the other end, as though the caller was looking around.  "I definitely consider that different.  No one _ever_ calls the Hub, man, the price is too high!"

            "I know," Angel murmured.  "That's definitely different.  Where did the Hub get called to?"

            "London.  Isn't it like, the middle of the night there or somethin'?"

"Or something.  Thanks for letting me know, Ylgev."  He listened to the young demon talk on for a few more minutes, then excused himself as politely as he could.

            Sometimes he missed the days of being completely and inexcusably mannerless.

            He picked up the phone again and made one more call, what he hoped was the last of the day.  A cup of blood and a nice, long nap were all he wanted at the moment.  But after he ended the connection with Giles, he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep a wink.

            The Hub meant that someone out there was serious about changing something.  But to find out who and what, all that was left to do was wait.

~~~

            "Nice day, what?"  Wesley took a deep breath and looked around the dank alleyway and shifted his weight uneasily.  "Don't you agree?" he persisted when it seemed as though Giles hadn't heard him.

            They'd told him the younger Watcher had made leaps and bounds of progress beyond the hapless milksop he had been, but Giles was starting to have his doubts.  Removing his glasses and cleaning them wearily, he closed his eyes.  "I heard you, Wesley, I just have no urge to indulge in small talk at the present moment."

            Wesley's face flushed and he cleared his throat, cursing himself.  He hadn't acted like such a blathering fool since… well, since Sunnydale.  He was starting to think it was just Rupert that made him so nervous.  Rupert and his damnably huge reputation and terribly condescending stares.  He made a perfectly intelligent Watcher feel like a complete, babbling moron.  And now he was even babbling internally.  "Bugger it all," he muttered under his breath, cheering himself up with the epithet.

            Predictably, Giles ignored him.  He forced himself not to check his watch.  It was no matter how long ago someone had summoned the Hub.  Time was too flexible, and the summoner could come out anywhere, anywhen, anyhow he or she pleased, provided they could pay up.

            If it were William, Giles surmised, he'd definitely pay up.  

            "We'll wait another hour," he told Wesley quietly.  "No matter what the time difference, I can't see he'd allow the Hub to waste any time."

            Wesley raised an eyebrow and turned his attention back to the wall.  "I can't see he's in any position to order the Hub to do anything."  Together, they stood in silence and watched a blank wall.

~~~

            "It's about a girl," Ramie cut straight to the point.  "He was with her, now he's not.  He needs your help."

            Spike raised an unscarred eyebrow at Laramie's painfully obvious message.  _Let me do the talking_, he may as well have said. 

            "A girl, a girl," the big man said, steepling his fingers.  "Always about a girl.  Suppose I'm not connected to a place where she'll have him?"  

            "You're connected to everything," Ramie said, slapping his hands down on the polished table the man sat at.  

            He inhaled off a thin, hand-rolled cigarette that Spike longed to swipe from his chubby fingers.  "Too true," he said dismissively.  "Let me rephrase, cat, suppose there is no such place?"

            "It isn't as though she bloody well jilted me, you fat git," Spike snapped.  "I died to save the bleedin' world, although with people like you, I can't see why I did—"

            It had taken Ramie a few moments to get past the "cat" that had slipped into the Hub's language.  Apparently a moment was all Spike had needed to insult the one being who could help him.  "I beg your pardon, sir," he said quickly, hip-checking Spike out of the way.  "My companion is distraught and wishes to earn his way back to the woman he loves."

            "I seem to recall you tried to do that a few months ago, Alain Lewiston."  The Hub took a swig from the silver flask on the table and ran his tongue over his teeth.  "No matter.  Let's start negotiations."

            "All right," Spike said excitedly, hunkering down at the man's table.  "Now we're talking."

            A slow, malevolent grin spread over the man's broad face and he nodded slowly.  "Oh, I certainly hope so."  

~~~

            "He's not coming."  Giles stood away from the wall and rubbed the back of his hand over his forehead.  "I doubt it was him, anyway."

            It was the most Giles had spoken to Wesley in the hour and a half they'd been waiting.  After the first twenty minutes, Wesley had begun wishing he were part of the wall.  At least that way he wouldn't be able to see Giles's measuring looks.  "Well, the odds were overwhelmingly against it," he said, looking forward to… anything away from Giles.  "However, it doesn't change the fact that someone has taken that measure."  He looked around at the sky and shuddered.  

            "No, it doesn't."  Giles closed his eyes momentarily and thought of Buffy, and how her life would have been had it actually been Spike coming through the Hub.  "It's best this way.  But we should keep whomever is using the Hub in our thoughts."

            "They could be dangerous," Wesley noted by way of  agreement.

            Giles walked down the sidewalk without looking back at his fellow Watcher.  "No," he corrected quietly.  "They could be damned."

~~~

            "Miss Summers?"  He nearly tripped over his own damned feet as he crossed the distance from the back of the classroom to the front where she stood with the cute brunette who kept to herself.  _Great_, he thought.  _Fall on her, that's sure to make a good impression._

            "Paul, hi," Buffy looked up at him and smiled, wanting to pat his head.  Only… she couldn't reach it.  It had taken her a few moments to remember his name.  "What can I do for ya?"  

            Kelly looked swiftly down at the floor as she saw the college student glance her way.  _Smooth, Kelly, let him catch you gawking at him while he's asking out the teacher._  She wanted to kick herself.  If she didn't know she'd break his shin, she'd kick him.

            "Well, I was just wonderin', since class got out early tonight, if you'd like to grab a cup of coffee somewhere.  I don't have class until the afternoon tomorrow, but—" he trailed off, his Adam's apple bobbing manically as he swallowed.  "Yeah," he finished lamely, his face flushing.

            Warning bells went off in Buffy's head and she suppressed a groan.  Damn it.  It was a good thing she hadn't made a bet with Kelly about it or anything.  She'd have straight up lost.  "You know, that's really nice of you, Paul, but we're not really allowed to date students."  Smiling kindly, she shrugged her shoulders in a 'what can you do' mannerism.

            "Oh."  He stood where he was for a moment while she gathered her things, then tried again.  "I'll quit the class," he said, thinking quickly.  "I don't really think I'm making any progress, anyway."  Not entirely the truth, but come on… some sacrifices had to be made.  But before he could gloat over the loophole he'd found, he saw something that made him go completely still and his brain scramble entirely.

            She was crying.

            She was holding her head down and the tears weren't falling, but he could see the brightness in her eyes and the way she was blinking rapidly to stem their flow.  The brunette laid a hand on Buffy's arm and shot him a glare.  

            _What the hell did I do?!_  "I won't quit, never mind, forget I said that, it was a bad idea.  Oh, man," he said nervously, switching his bag from one arm to the other and bending over, way over, to try and meet her eye.  "Hey, Miss Summers, just forget I said anything, all right?  I didn't mean to make you cry."

            Buffy longed to bury her head in his big chest and just cry it out then send him on his way.  But to cry it all out, every bit of it, she'd be there for a long while.  Days, weeks.  Probably years.  "You didn't make me cry, Paul," she said, willing back the tears with the skill of long practice and training in self-discipline.  "Look, I'll just be cliché and say I'm just coming out of a relationship.  I'm way too screwed up for you."  She smiled a shaky, sad smile and shook her head.  "I'll see you next week," she managed before running outside.

            "Oh, man," Paul said again, smacking himself in the forehead.  "Now I feel like a heel."

            Kelly glanced up at him.  "It's not your fault."  She looked at the door Buffy had just exited out of and sighed.  "I'll tell her you're sorry."

            "Yeah," Paul said absently, his gaze also fixed on the door.  

            How come all the cute girls came with mucho baggage?


	12. 11 Teaching and Learning

            "What do you have to offer me, William, William the Bloody, Spike?"  He said the names in quick succession, nearly blurring them into one long word.  

            "I'm afraid you're going to have to explain the process to me.  In all my years, here and there, I don't know as I ever heard of the likes of you."  Spike kept his eyes on the man's, but it hurt to do so.  They were constantly, subtly, changing shape, color, and expression.  "Hub, eh?  Like on an auto?"

            "Somewhat," he said, letting his kaleidoscope eyes flit from Spike to Laramie and back again.  He sighed heavily and shook his head sorrowfully.  "I see that the frog here hasn't told you anything about me."  He pulled his mouth into a pout, his face growing structurally a little longer, his eyes a little bigger.  It was a caricature of the previous face, an overdramatically sad rendition.  "I'm disappointed.  My ego is wounded."  Abruptly, the face snapped back.  "Just as well, Watcher.  You Council bastards never tell my story right anyway.  

            "I am the Hub.  As there are many spokes in a wheel, so there are many dimensions in the world.  To say I am actually the Hub is a bit of an overstatement, though I'm quite deserving—" he paused to buff his fingernails on the front of his shirt, his eyes gleaming with glee as he saw Spike's impatience.  "But you could rather say that I am in control of the hub, in control of the comings and goings between dimensions."

            "How in the bloody hell did that happen?" Spike asked, more out of curiosity than designed insolence.  It was ludicrous for an ex-vampire to profess belief in God, but Spike did, and it made him wonder how such a being, a shifty, shiftless, mercenary being, could come into such control.

            "Life is but a cosmic accident," the Hub said loftily, effectively brushing off Spike's question.  In reality, the Hub didn't even know how it had happened.  But the bratty, poetic failure of a vampire didn't need to know that.  "I control the dimensions like a toll road."       

            "So you're kind of like a Key," Spike mused aloud, thinking of Dawn.  "Only a thieving skeleton key."

            "You know a Key?"  The Hub clucked his tongue and shook his head.  "Well, then, that's a buzz kill.  I was going to explain that, as well.  Moving on," he shouted, making both men wince.  "Toll road.  So what I'm telling you is that even if you lived in this world a hundred and fifty years, two hundred years, three thousand years, you would never reconvene with your Slayer."  He mimed wiping a tear away and laughed when Spike growled low in his throat.  "Because this is the dimension where you didn't get vamped.  Because you didn't get vamped, you didn't have your Slayer fetish and murder indulgence, and so—" He spread his hands in a fait accompli gesture.  "Here you are.  Pity for you, really, blondes haves much more fun."  And without any effort, the dark hair styled impeccably atop his large head faded into an ashy blond.

            "And so now all I have to do is pay my toll," Spike finished.  He ignored Laramie's heavy sigh behind him.  "Well, then, that doesn't sound so bad.  What do you want from me?"

            "Your soul, Willy my boy.  Is that so much to ask?"

~~~

             "I can't do it."  Willow looked apologetically up at Wesley and spread her hands.  "I can't do a locator spell when there are so many variables.  Maybe he's not alive, maybe he's a vampire, maybe he's not.  If I don't even know what kind of being he is, how can I find him, and if I can't find him, how is Buffy ever going to know?  You know, it's just all this big mess, and I don't think I can handle letting her down.  Every time I talk to her on the phone, it's like—"

            "Hey."  Kennedy placed a hand over Willow's and looked up at Wesley imploringly.  "It's okay, Red, take it easy."

            "I always want to fix everything," she said miserably.  "And I can't ever do it."

            "I dunno," Xander said, coming in from the kitchen of the apartment.  "I'd say you did a bang-up job with the whole 'Boom, thousands of Slayers' thing."  He bit into a sandwich and grinned around it.  

            "You can't argue that," Wesley said.  "Don't worry about the location.  I just wanted you to know we looked.  We tried to wait around and see, but nothing came about."

            "She's so miserable, Wesley, but she doesn't seem to know it.  It's like…" Willow struggled for the words and sighed.  "It's like she has all these happy parts and then one big sad part.  It's sorta makin' all the happy parts… sad."  

            "Hopefully we'll figure something out soon," Wesley said, patting her on the back awkwardly.  "I should be going."  Once the Watcher had left, Willow turned to her girlfriend and best friend.  

            "He was the only one who stood by her," she said insistently.

            "Wesley?" Xander asked, tossing his paper plate onto the table and earning a glare from Kennedy.

            "No," Kennedy said, rolling her eyes.  "Spike."  She turned to Willow for affirmation.  "He was the only one who stood by Buffy.  But when do you mean?"

            It was Willow's turn to roll her eyes, but she kept the gesture in check.  No matter how much she cared about Kennedy, she was still naïve.  She was like a bulldozer, doing things and never realizing what she was doing.  "We kicked her out of the house when we knew it wasn't safe.  We shunted her from the group when we were practicing safety in numbers.  We told her she was wrong, and for the millionth time, she was right.  And the only person who didn't do that was—"

            "The pussy-whipped vampire," Kennedy finished with a sneer.  "I still say we were right.  Just because he was trying to get on her good side even more, he—"

            "Shut up, Kennedy."  Willow had been prepared to say it herself, as much as she hated to, but it was Xander who had spoken against the girl.  "You wanna learn a lesson about being a leader?  About being Chosen?  First lesson, have some humility."  He stood up and crumpled the paper plate into a ball.  "Spike saved my ass, sure, but he saved yours, too.  I don't care what you thought of him before that, but now, shut your damned mouth.  Admit when you're wrong."  He took a few steps away, then turned to look at her, aiming the barb he knew would strike truest, hurt most.  

"Buffy would have known better."  

~~~

            "Wow, was that ever stupid."  Buffy mopped her eyes with a paper towel from the roll hanging beside the sink and looked at Kelly.  "I hope you came up with a really good excuse for me.  Like… 'She has multiple personalities.  It looks like one of them is sad today.'"

            Kelly laughed despite herself.  She wanted to suggest Buffy get help, but what kind of help could she get?  She couldn't very well go to a psychologist and tell them the true story.  For the truth, she'd easily be committed as insane.

            "I'm sorry," Buffy finally said, sweeping her hair out of her face with one hand and tilting her head thoughtfully.  "You know, I made it almost two weeks this time."  

            "What?"  

            "It's been almost two weeks since I did that.  Cried at random."  Though she was smiling about it, Kelly's heart ached for her.  She looked as though she had more to say, so Kelly sat back and prepared to listen.

            "I was okay… but I had this dream last night."  She described, as best she could, the two men in the darkness, the plans they were making, things she didn't understand.  "And then one looked up… and it was though he was staring straight at me."  Buffy shivered as the hair on the back of her neck stood on end.  "And his eyes…"  She heard her voice tremble and laughed.  "There I almost went again."

            "What about his eyes?" Kelly prompted gently.  She might not be a psychologist, but the least she could do it help Buffy get it out of her system. 

            "They were Spike's."  She rubbed a hand over her face, exhausted and embarrassed.  "I'm just stressed."

            Kelly thought not.  She'd been reading, doing research, and she had figured out a long time ago that none of her dreams were just dreams.  They always meant something, indicated something.  More often than not, they indicated something wrong.  But she would do a little more research, ask around, see what she came up with.

            Kelly also thought it was high time she found some of the other people who had been through the Sunnydale battle.

            If Buffy was going to be helped, it had to be a two-front war.

~~~

            Spike sucked in a breath, his cheekbones standing starkly from his face.  "My soul, eh?  Awfully dear for a toll road, don't you think?"

            The Hub shrugged negligently and took another pull from his flask as though it made no difference to him.  But he was hungry for this one, even if—

            "What do you do with them?  What do you want with my soul?" But the gears in Spike's head were already turning.  The soul didn't matter as much as it could have.  Sure, he'd fought to get it back, but he'd proven he could love without it, and love quite well.  He could love without a soul and with a demon.  And his soul belonged to _her_.  No matter what this twisted highway robber did with it, it would always belong to her.

            "Where do you think I get all my pretty masks?" the Hub said petulantly, sounding like a child.  Sounding, Spike thought with a shudder, like Dru.  "And oh, what fun I'll have with your pretty face."  He morphed into a woman with a cloud of strawberry blond hair and piercing green eyes.  "The ladies love men who look like you.  Haunted eyes and all that hair."  She tipped a wink even as she turned back into the Brooklyn rum-runner.

            "Fine," Spike said.  "I'm sick of nattering about it, just get the matter over with."

            Laramie's breath was taken away by the rashness, by the sheer determination of the man.  He had tried to use the Hub when Katya was turned, but couldn't bring himself to do it.  He was too used to his soul, but moreover… moreover, if he were taken from this dimension, someone might kill her. 

            The Hub rubbed his hands together and stopped with a sharp clap.  "Let's rock and roll," he said gleefully, manufacturing a piece of paper out of thin air.  "Sign on the dotted line, my friend."

            The minute Spike picked up the pen to sign, he vanished completely.

            So did Ramie.


	13. 12 Caring and Uncaring

            "Rupert, wake up."  Wesley poked at the older man's shoulder gingerly, wondering what, precisely, he had done to deserve wake-up duty.  The two men had red-eyed it back from London, pleading Sunnydale cleanup as their cause to leave again.  It wasn't entirely untrue.  Weren't Buffy's mental state and a possibly reconstituted vampire all part of the Sunnydale fallout?

            When Giles merely grunted and mumbled a few unimaginable Cockney curses under his breath, Wesley lost his patience.

            "Hello, Ripper," he said in a sliding, gravelly voice completely unlike his own.  "I've come to take you apart, limb by limb and organ by—"

            He got no further before Giles sat straight up in bed, eyes wild.  He clamped a hand around Wesley's throat before his eyes had even focused, but Wesley was prepared for such an eventuality.  He slammed the heel of his hand into the crook of Giles's elbow, forcing Giles's arm to bend and bringing their faces closer together.  As Giles's eyes cleared with recognition, Wesley whipped a hand around and gripped the nape of his elder's neck, bringing tears to Giles's eyes.  

            "Well, now," Giles said quietly, his free hand groping blindly for his glasses.  "I see you've much improved, Wesley."

            Unable to pass up the opportunity, Wesley released Giles's neck and slapped the hand away from his throat.  "You haven't," he said flatly.  "Come on.  There's a girl on the phone at Angel's, a Slayer in Indiana.  She's calling about Buffy."  He knew the less he said, the faster Giles would move, so he said no more.  The second they walked into Angel's office, they were accosted by Willow.

            "I told you she was miserable!" she said accusingly to Wesley.  It was the best she could do, considering she couldn't bring herself to look at Angel.

            Angel rubbed his eyes as he listened to the young woman's voice pouring over the speaker phone.  _Together again_, he thought, looking around him.  It was as though Buffy was the tie that bound, that pulled its weight so far as London to have them all together again.  He wondered fleetingly if there was a limit to the number of directions a man, a vampire, could be pulled in.

            He was Angel from Sunnydale.

            He was Angel of L.A.

            It was becoming increasingly more difficult for him to keep it all separate, to keep all of it straight.  Sunnydale was taking over again.  Buffy was consuming him in her love for Spike.

~~~

            Laramie was already shouting when the brick wall materialized in front of them.  It was precisely the same wall they'd started from, only now the sounds of automobiles and radios pounded around them, making Ramie's head ache.

            "Tenfold times three!  Threefold times ten!  The bloody Hub is where it begins and where it all ends!  If I wish to speak, to entreat, to see, I shall tell the God damned Hub who I may be!" he shouted, whirling around to look for the Hub.  "It's Laramie, _vous__ foutu batard_, you bloody bastard!"

            "Now, now," the Hub's new voice, thin and reedy, purely British, reached Ramie's ears as a painfully thin young man with a green mohawk and a shard of black glass dangling from his left ear came striding down the sidewalk.  The safety pins and buckles that adorned him from head to toe jingled slightly as he sidled to a halt.  "Patience.  I can't be all places at once, Alain."  Though it basically a lie, it was entertaining.

            "Why am I here?  _Mon dieu_, you brought me along with—"  For the first time since they'd traveled, Ramie thought of Spike.  "Oh, dear God."  Ignoring the Hub, he knelt on the dirty stones of the alleyway and touched a gentle hand to Spike's pallid cheek.  Bruises had purpled beneath his eyes and his trembling lips were nearly white.  

            "What has happened?" Ramie turned to the Hub, his mossy eyes bright with rage and worry.  "What in the hell have you done?"

            The Hub tilted his head and stroked his hairless chin.  "I have sent a traveler on his way.  I never said the trip would be easy or the payment easily given."

            Laramie stood, towering over the punk the Hub had presented himself as.  Though such attire should have been bizarre to a man from more than a century ago, Ramie immediately associated him with various demons and ignored the anomaly of dress and appearance.  "And me?  Why am I here?"  Even as he asked the question, though, he felt a fierce sense of gladness that he _was_ there.  Not only for William, but also because his obligation to Ekaterina had been taken away from him by someone else.  It was harder to feel guilty if it was an accident.  Or it was at least easier to dismiss the guilt.

            The Hub feigned shock.  "My dear Alain, surely you don't think I would leave a soulless wretch—"  He nudged Spike with his toe—"To wander the earth alone."

            Ramie bared his straight, white teeth in a low growl.  "Don't pretend you are tender of heart, greed-demon.  You gave me a free ride, you have to have a reason."

            The Hub reached out with a corded, tattooed arm and grasped the lapel of Ramie's now antique wool coat.  "You have too many questions, Watcher.  Usually I would answer you just for the pleasure of demonstrating that I know more than you idiot humans.  But this is bigger than me."  Letting Ramie go with a jerk, he sneered.  "Your traveler here apparently requires guidelines and a companion.  Lucky you."  The rules forced upon him had made him angry, indeed.  He'd never been sanctioned before, never been restrained.

            _Something bigger than the Hub?_  Before Ramie could process that bit of information, the punk-rocking Hub was gone and Spike was waking.

~~~

            "This is very bad."  Buffy looked at the paper in front of her and back at Dawn.  "I can't believe this."

            "Oh, come on," Dawn said, rolling her eyes.  She hadn't even wanted to give Buffy the teacher's note.  It wasn't like they were hard to hide, or anything.  She'd hidden teacher's notes all the time back in Sunnydale, forged Buffy's signature, faked all sorts of things like that.

            "When did you become a brainiac?" Buffy demanded, waving the paper and trying to keep her glee from leaping out of her in a shout.  If she showed her sister how completely and totally great it was that she was a freakin' genius, then Dawn would surely back away from it.

            "Umm… somewhere between Key and Ubervamp."  Dawn smiled sheepishly. 

            "They want you to take college courses.  Two years ahead of time.  That's just… wow."  Buffy looked up at Dawn and nodded thoughtfully.  "Think we ought to frame this?"

            "Buffy, no!" Mortified, Dawn tried to snatch the paper back from Buffy.  "I shouldn't have even brought it home.  I'm not planning on doing it."

            Now was the time for brawn over brains, Buffy thought, planting her hands on her hips.  "Ohhh, no you don't.  I don't care if you're not planning on doing it.  You'll do it anyway."  At Dawn's petulant look, she added, "I can turn you over my knee."

            After hugging her younger sister hard enough to make her back pop, Buffy rushed to the telephone and starting trying to call anyone and everyone to relay the good news.

             But everywhere she called, no one picked up their phones.  Xander and Will's apartment got no answer, as did Giles's place in London.  Though she hated to call, she got a busy signal at Angel's.  Lastly, she got a busy signal at Kelly's, too.

            "Huh," Buffy said, staring at the phone.  "That's weird."  With a shrug, she hung it up.

~~~

            His first thought was that he hurt like a motherfucker and that someone was going to pay.  He opened first one eye, wincing at the pain that pulsed with each heartbeat he had.  The light seemed to be attacking his eye in waves, so he opened the other one to distribute some of the shock.    All that did was double it.

            "Bloody fuckin' hell," he said, trying to sit up.  He was hotter than a bitch in heat, and the jacket he was wearing itched like a—

            "Spike?"  

            Spike jerked, smacking his head against the brick wall behind him and cursing colorfully.  As he narrowed his eyes at the man standing in front of him, he discovered the added benefit that squinting _just so_ blocked out a good portion of the light.  "Peachy," he muttered, studying Laramie.  "You're Ramie," he said matter-of-factly.

            _Good_, Laramie thought.  _At least he hasn't forgotten me._  "Right so far," he said, hunkering down and looking at Spike.  "We made it.  The Hub sent us over."

            "You mean the fuckin' Godfather?" Spike asked, struggling to his feet.

            Laramie was trying to hide his excitement.  Though he didn't understand Spike's last remark, the soullessness didn't seem to be making much of a difference, and as odd as that was, it simplified things greatly.  "So you know where… when we are?  And why?"

            Spike touched a hand to his head and felt a great, gaping hole re-open inside of him.  It was like dying, only greater, like losing Buffy, only deeper.  It was like… regaining his soul only to lose it again.

            "I came to find Buffy," he said wonderingly.  "Only now…"  He struggled to find the words, tilting his empty eyes to Ramie's.  "Only now it's like I can't find it in me to care."


	14. 13 Asking and Answering

            Her head felt like it was going to explode.

            How in the world was she supposed to remember everything they'd told her?  Kelly supposed, in a way, it was all her fault.  After all, she had wanted to know the whole story in order to help her friend.  It wasn't anyone's fault that the "whole story" turned out to be hopelessly complicated and completely bizarre, even for a Slayer.  

            She'd had to take notes to remember it all.

            Now she looked at the page she'd scribbled about Spike, whom Kelly deemed the most important part of the whole story.  He was the knight, the champion, the man who had saved the world.  He had fought to gain a soul so he could better love Buffy, and he had died in the nobility which that soul had given him.  That was, at least, the impression that Kelly had gleaned from the myriad people who had spoken to her.  But she thought perhaps they didn't have a good grasp on things, as an outsider would.

            It seemed to her that Spike's nobility had come before the soul, not the other way around.

            And the worst part of it was, Buffy had more or less watched him die.  

            "She didn't actually love him," the girl called Kennedy had conjectured brashly.  "She just felt obligated."  There had been murmurs then, of dissent, but a few of agreement.  The man named Robin—Robin Wood, the thought still made Kelly giggle—had agreed.  And shockingly enough, the other vampire with a soul had went right along with them. 

            But Kelly, newcomer though she was, had more to say about that.  "That's where you're wrong," she said softly, shocked at how the commotion on the other end died down.  "You don't cry yourself to sleep every night over a man you felt obligated to."  _Forgive me for telling on you, Buffy,_ she had thought as she said it.

            And there was a chance that he was alive, and human.  The thought made Kelly's heart quicken in her chest, with both hope and fear for her friend.  No wonder things had been worse for her lately.  

            Kelly was more mixed up than she had been when she called, but now, at least, she could help.  She was another ear kept to the ground, another set of eyes watching for the return of the man whom Buffy mourned for.

~~~

            "I don't know that I can call these better," Laramie plucked at the white tee-shirt and dark jeans he was wearing.  "They're not precisely comfortable, are they?"

            Spike rolled a cigarette between his fingers, looking at it as though confused.  Finally, he looked up at Laramie.  "You look like a model.  You should suck in your cheeks like a nancy."  He demonstrated but didn't respond when Laramie followed suit.

            This was not, Laramie thought, what he would have thought soullessness was like.  The man wasn't violent, he wasn't mean, he was just… blank.  He had the same knowledge, the same conversational quirks, the same thoughts, but… there was no pleasure in them or reason behind them.  

            If Laramie had known of such things, he would have said that conversing with Spike was like conversing with a robot.  Tired of trying out small talk on his passionless friend, he changed tactics.  "Why don't you care if you find Buffy or not?"

            Spike shrugged and felt that great, yawning pit inside him stretch its walls a little more.  "Does it matter?  It doesn't.  She's somewhere, doing  something, probably with someone else.  It's just another day, you know."

            _The Hub didn't take your bloody soul,_ Laramie thought.  _He just took part of it… your hope.  Your pleasure.  He took what you call your heart.  _The thought made his eyes water and his stomach churn.  Something had to be done, but the Hub was unbeatable.  Only… 

            Only the Hub had admitted something bigger was out there, and that Spike was involved in it.  And he needed a companion, Laramie thought.  So a companion he would be.  "Well, it is too bad you feel that way, _mon__ ami_.  For you and I, we are finding your Buffy no matter what you say."  He looked for something, anything to change in the formerly bright eyes of his friend, but nothing shifted, nothing changed.  

            "I don't want to do anything, and you bloody well can't make me."  Spike glared at Laramie, his brows drawn into a stark frown.  

            Ramie bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling.  Anger, at least, was something apparently not rooted completely in the soul.  And if anger would fuel him, then so be it.  "I do not know as that's the truth, William, but we will see."  He was tempted to call the Hub again, force him to tell them where Buffy was.  But he knew the Hub would give him only evasions, so he did the only thing he knew to do.  

            He headed for the Council.

~~~

            For the first night since the averted Apocalypse, Buffy went patrolling.  She and Kelly strolled side-by-side, each with a stake in their pockets and a not-so-secret yearning for a fight in their hearts.  

            "You know," Buffy said, fingering the smooth wood of the stake she clasped loosely, "For the first time in my life, I say I wish we were near a Hellmouth."

            "Spoken like a true psycho," Kelly judged, looking around.  "Or a true native of the Hellmouth."

            "Not a native," Buffy insisted petulantly.  "Just a very bored Slayer looking for something to turn into a pile of dust."

            "It's Indiana.  People die in hunting and boating accidents around here," Kelly laughed.  "No one gets vamped."

            "It'd be a hell of a lot easier to get you all trained up if they did," Buffy muttered.  "C'mon.  Graveyard."  When they made it to the town's sprawling cemetery, however, it seemed as though some of the fight had been taken out of Buffy.  She approached a huge, marble crypt, running her finger over the engravings in the door.

            "You don't ever talk to me about him," Kelly said quietly, standing beside her.  "Maybe if you talked, it would be easier…"

            "I don't want it to be easier," Buffy said, the words surprising her.  Going with the train of thought that had started, she added, "If it's easier, I might forget.  I don't want to forget him, ever."

            Nothing seemed appropriate to say after that, and so the two Slayers, two of many, walked in silence in the humid Indiana air.

~~~

            "Something's wrong."  Willow sat up in the middle of the night, the orbs of her eyes briefly flashing black.  "Things are shifting."  She pressed a hand to the pit of her stomach and raised her eyebrows at the butterflies she felt there.

            Kennedy had already been awake.  It seemed harder and harder to get to sleep these days.  She went out with Angel and his crew now and then, fighting when they needed fighters and… well, not much more than that.  They treated her as superfluous, though she'd never admit she was.  But when she was with Willow, or any of the people left over from Sunnydale, she may as well have been invisible.  Days and nights were consumed by Buffy, and Kennedy was starting to wonder if maybe it had always been that way.  Maybe she'd just been too hardheaded to see it.  _Keep on pushing_, a tiny, niggling voice was telling her, keeping her awake.  _Keep on pushing, and they'll hate you before long._

            She knew when she was wrong.  It was just easier to twist things around until she was right than to apologize for her flaws.  Now, however, her lover was her prime concern.

            "What's the matter, Red?"  She put a bracing arm around the witch's shoulders.

            "I haven't felt like this since the stirrings of the First," Willow said.  "Only… I don't think this is bad."  She rubbed her stomach again and shot a shaky smile at Kennedy.  "It's just… powers are shifting, things are happening.  It makes me wonder what's going on."

              "Hopefully nothing that involves us," Kennedy said, pulling Willow down to her and stroking a hand through her hair.  "But I've been having dreams.  Just flashes, really, nothing I can put my finger on."

            "Well," Willow said, somehow comforted by the fact that she wasn't the only one feeling things, "At least we won't ever be bored."

            Kennedy grinned and slid her hand down Willow's body in the dark.  "Honey, you'll never be bored with me."


	15. 14 Coming and Going

            "_Sum corpus_," Ramie said when they reached what he thought had been the Council in his time.  It was hard to tell, with the new storefronts and painted walls, added buildings and large glass windows.  A small slot slid open in the door and a very shocked pair of brown eyes looked back at him.

            "Wh-who are you?  How did you know we were here?"  The eyes skittered back and forth, accompanying the nervousness of the man's voice.

            Ramie's brow furrowed as he leaned a bit closer to the door.  It didn't slip by his notice that the man on the other side jerked back as though bitten.  "This is where the Council always was—at least a long time ago."  How in the hell was he supposed to explain this?  And of course, Spike wasn't helping at all, but rather smoking those nasty little white tubes, one after the other, and throwing the remnants all over the street.

            "Listen," Ramie said, planting one large hand next to the watchman's slot.  "I refuse to stand on the street like a commoner while I shout into you.  I will tell you as much as I want to, and you will let me in.  Understood?"  When the man nodded convulsively, Ramie plowed ahead.  "Have you any knowledge of someone or something referred to as the Hub?"

            The man's eyes grew impossibly wide and the sounds of a key turning in a lock were audible through the thick door.  "You!  It is you who summoned the Hub."  He threw open the door, a thick-bodied man who looked more like a blacksmith than someone who would be working for the Council.  "We have had word of you."

            Word?  Ramie frowned in thought.  Who would give word to the Council about the Hub?

            The guard glanced at Spike, a mixture of awe and horror on his face.  "This is 'im, then?  The one who paid with 'is—"

            "Yes," Ramie interrupted the man, not caring to hear how he would finish his sentence.  Spike still stood on the street, regarding the two other men as calmly as he might have regarded paint drying.  Flicking yet another cigarette butt away, he drew out another whole one.

            Ramie had had enough.  He slapped the cigarette out of Spike's hand, watching Spike's eyes narrow in anger.  "I refuse to watch you smoke another one of those horrid things with their eye-watering stench.  They are not good for you.  Try and remember you have the body of a human now."  Though he had worked hard to avoid it, he was still speaking in a tone of voice appropriate for a child.  No matter what the incongruence, though, it seemed to work.  

            Spike shifted his weight from one foot to the other and leaned forward, his face close to Ramie's.  It was odd, Ramie thought, to see the gentle-looking man with his long poet's face and his curly, boyish locks, and then to look in his eyes, an ever-changing blue that should have been charming but was instead bored and vacant.  For a small moment, Ramie thought Spike would try and hit him, or attack him in some other way, but all he did was open his mouth and let a single puff of lingering smoke waft into Ramie's face.

            "Charming," Ramie sneered, snatching the pack of cigarettes away from Spike and dragging him into the Council building.

            "This isn't our regular building," the guard said hastily, leading them through corridors Ramie still found familiar.  "The other one got bombed."

            "Bombed?"  Ramie repeated incredulously.

            "Eh, I remember that."  Spike put in flatly, still glaring at the back of Laramie's head.  Bloody ponce had lifted his smokes.  

            "In this room, please."  The guard gestured to a room, ushered them in, and then made a quick exit.  

            "Well, well."  A tall, thin man stood up from the table, stopping in mid-conversation with two young Watchers.  "So you're the ones who summoned the Hub, and now you've managed to get into our… offices ad temporum.  Care to tell me who you are?"  His cultured voice held nearly no accent, the mark of a much-traveled man.  Before Ramie could answer, Spike had withdrawn the sealed papers Ramie had given him and tossed them on the table.

            "That is all you need to know," he said carelessly, shrugging a shoulder and turning to Ramie.  "Now can we leave?  This place makes my fucking skin itch."

            The tall, silver-haired man took the papers but kept his eyes on Spike.  "And here is the soulless wonder."  He gestured subtly to the two men he'd been conversing with, watching expressionlessly as they jumped up from the table and grabbed Spike.  

            "You're absolutely right," he said in a quiet, pleasant tone of voice, keeping his eyes on Spike.  "That's all we need to know.  Take him away."

~~~

            "Buffy!"  Dawn burst into the house, a rush of spangled tank-top and long, smooth hair.  "Buffy?"  Her voice was reaching the upper octaves, so Buffy knew something was either seriously wrong or seriously right.  

            She stopped in mid-kick with Kelly and rolled her eyes.  "Sorry.  Sibling emergency."  Throwing open the door to the extra bedroom, which was the makeshift training room, she looked at Dawn.  Seeing the panicked look in her sister's eyes, she stepped forward and grabbed her arms.  "Dawnie, tell me what's wrong."

            "Vampires, at the college," Dawn gasped, pressing a hand to her chest.  She was on her second week of advanced courses at the local college, and it had been on the campus that she'd seen them.  "They aren't all lumpy or anything, but I could tell… there were two of them, they were strange.  I knew…"

            "All right," Buffy said calmly, glancing at Kelly, whose face had gone ashen.  "Hmm… strange looking college gang.  Are you sure they weren't just philosophy majors?"  She felt a cool tide of relief wash over her at her sister's small smile.

            "Positive.  Please, you need to go now."  

            Buffy didn't need to be told again.  Tucking a stake into her sleeve, she headed out of the house at a trot.  "Stay in the house," she called over her shoulder, gesturing impatiently to Kelly.  The younger Slayer wanted a fight, she would have one.

            She was in a full-out run by the time they reached the campus.  "None too soon," Buffy muttered, hearing a woman's scream.  

            The two vampires never expected interference until they were flung away from their prey in mid-bite.  "Hey!" one of them said loudly.

            "Awww," Buffy said sympathetically, prowling around the vampire as she twirled her stake.  "Yeah, I hate it when people interrupt my meals, too."  Not waiting to finish her sentence, she kicked the vampire square in the chest, sending him stumbling back.

            Kelly couldn't think of a single thing to say, or a single reason to make conversation with the lumpy-looking, yellow-eyed creature in front of her.  She just wanted it gone, and preferably by someone else's hand.  But she was a Slayer, and Slayers did not delegate.  She launched herself in the air, raising her left knee.  The vampire ducked to her right as she predicted, so she pistoned her left leg back to the ground and kicked hard with her right.  She contacted squarely with his chin, sending his head snapping back.  She staked him while he was still trying to gain his bearings, wincing at the cloud of dust that settled on her.  As soon as her adrenaline-sharpened senses settled into some semblance of normality, she heard the most incredible thing on earth.

            Buffy… was lecturing… the vampire.

            "I'm really amazed—" KICK "That you would have the nerve to come to a town—" PUNCH, ROLL "In which two Slayers live."  SPIN, KICK  "You know, you must not have that whole vampire networking thing going on."  So saying, she sped the stake toward his chest, stabbing and withdrawing without looking.  As the dust rained around her, she turned back to Kelly.  

            Kelly's mouth hung open in an ungainly gape.  "Do you… is it… are you always like that?"

            Buffy stared at her blankly, then scowled in annoyance at the dusty smudge left on her black pants.  "Darn it!  These are dry-clean only."  Brushing at them, she kept her eyes on Kelly.  "I'm sorry… what were you saying?"

            "It was like… it was fun for you.  You were having fun with that… thing.  You were playing with it."

            Buffy shrugged and smiled as though it was the simplest thing in the world.  "Hey, I figure the more I change it up, the less likely I am to burn out.  You didn't do so bad yourself."

            "Um… yeah," Kelly said, and promptly turned to throw up on the ground.

~~~

            "Grab a bag, we're leaving."  Giles slammed into Wesley's room without pausing, his car keys in his hand.  "If you don't grab your bag, you'll just have to go naked, I'm afraid."

            "I don't suppose you would mind telling me what we're in such a mad rush for?" Wesley said pleasantly, though he was already gathering his things.

            "I don't suppose I would, Wesley, if you'd just hurry as I do so.  I was just contacted by the Council.  Two men have entered the Council, one of them claiming to be a Watcher from two centuries ago, the other belligerent but saying nothing useful.  The one who claims to be a Watcher says they came by Hub.  Now, if you're quite up to speed—"

            "What are we waiting for?" Wesley asked, walking out the door ahead of Giles.  


	16. 15 Hoping and Dreaming

            "What?"  Laramie started forward, only to be stopped by the older gentleman's hand on his arm.  

            "Laramie?"  Spike looked up, his eyes wide, confused, and very, very William.  

            Without thinking, Laramie plowed his fist into the Councilman's face, ducking under his arm and reaching Spike's captors, one of whom Spike was already fighting with a mechanical determination that sent a chill down Laramie's spine.  The nineteenth-century Watcher brought the side of his hand down on one young man's wrist, making the young Council member howl in pain and release his quarry.  

            Spike bared his teeth in a growl, slamming his hand into the other Watcher's nose and feeling a sick sort of satisfaction when he felt bones crunch.  He reared his fist back, lips peeled away from his teeth as he breathed heavily through his mouth.  He was going to hit the guy again, and again; if he just kept hitting him, there would be something, right?  Some kind of—

            He was yanked off the man, thrown aside.  Laramie swept his dark, long hair out of his face, and his eyes signaled rage, clear and deadly.  "What are you doing?  You wish to stay here forever, you simpleton?  Or perhaps you wish to become a murderer again."  He turned, leaping over the unconscious men lying on the floor, and exited the room, leaving Spike to follow him.

            Stupid, he cursed himself.  Stupid for bringing him here, to the Council.  They would have killed him if given the chance, because it was in the rules.  It was in the rules that anyone without a soul was considered an "other."  An enemy.

            "They didn't know we were coming."  Spike caught up with Ramie outside the building.  "Seems like they would have known you'd go there first, brainy ponces that they are."  He was cruising on the adrenaline of the moment, relishing the burst of energy it had given him.  

            "The Council… the Council in my time… they would not have made note of you, of your plea.  And once I disappeared, they would have erased every record of me in case I had taken the Hub.  Though this is a different time, they would not take the risk."  He rubbed his eyes and slowed his pace a bit.  "They told you, William, they would not aid you in creating paradoxes.  They would not tolerate their own, either."

            "And they wouldn't tolerate me, eh?  As a soulless human, I s'pose I'm the biggest paradox they've seen."  Spike grinned joylessly, and the thin tether Ramie had placed on himself snapped.

            "Are you in there somewhere?  Anywhere?"  He grabbed Spike by the shoulders and shook as hard as he could, sending the floppy curls into disarray, shaking the sneering grin off his face.  "Or am I cursed to be the bloody handmaid of an empty husk for the rest of my life?"  Frustrated, he tossed Spike aside and muttered, "I'll let your precious buggerin' Slayer take care of you."

            "I don't like it any more than you do," Spike called after him, causing the Watcher to stop.  "I still remember her, Ramie.  But now all I remember… all I remember and feel from her are the bad things.  The things that were wrong between us."

            "What things?"  Ramie kept his back to Spike, listening intently.

            "The fighting.  The bloody declarations of hatred."  His voice dropped to a rasp, but his next words were audible.  "The time I almost raped her even as I claimed I loved her."  Silence ticked by, and he added, "And now that's what I am again."

            And that's why you need me, Laramie thought silently, turning back to Spike.  "So do you want to find her?"

            Spike laughed, a bitter, humorless sound, but when he spoke next, it was William who supplied the words, as it had always been.  Spike's moments of eloquence had always, always been holdovers from an educated, rejected young man who had been too close to his mother.  

            "Even the bad moments with her were better than my best moments without her.  I can't feel it now, but I know what it felt like, Watcher.  I don't need my soul to know I needed her.  I never needed my soul to tell me I needed to feed, did I?  And now, I still know what she is to me, and it's just… a fact, a barren fact.  But I'll find her, even if, even though I don't have it in me to care, just as you eat when you are not hungry, or talk when you've nothing to say."  He clutched a hand into his curls, and the uncertain, needy voice of William poured out.  

            "I-I have lost something, and I am not at all certain how to get it back."  His eyes met Laramie's, the pain evident in them, and he tilted his head.  "You promised you would help me, did you not?  That was you?"

            Laramie dropped a trembling hand to his friend's shoulder and prayed for the strength to keep his promises.  "That was me."  

~~~

            "Well, this is a completely unpleasant and not altogether surprising situation I find you all in."  Giles looked at the trio of bruised and broken men gathered in the small room of the Council's makeshift offices and shook his head.  His voice hardened in a rare show of temper.  "Why do you think so many of us defied the Council, left you when we had to, why do you think my Slayer disobeyed you time and time again?"  When he was given no answer, his voice raised to a roar.  "You're too bloody stubborn.  There is no black and white, gentlemen, there are shades in between, and you lack the finesse and the imagination to comprehend as such."

            Wesley felt like applauding but kept it to himself.  Instead he stood in the doorway, arms crossed, an expression of cool distaste etched on his features.  

            "I am ashamed of you.  I am ashamed of the fact that there are idiots like you protecting mankind."  He took off his glasses and rubbed a hand over his tired eyes.  He felt travel-worn, his eyes grainy and his skin too tight.  "I am ashamed to be associated with you."

            "We told you there might be someone," Wesley said.  

            "There were two men."  The older gentleman, Ian, finally spoke up, touching long, elegant fingers to his split lip.  "You said there would be one man."

            "We promised nothing," Wesley said casually, crossing the room to look down at Ian.  "You say one of them was a Watcher and the other was lacking his soul.  They came to you for help and you attacked them."

            Neither Ian nor his two helpers had any response for that.

            "We're wasting time," Giles said quietly.  "We need to look for them."

            "This will come to no good," Ian cried out, standing up.  "You have no rules, you have no standards.  Being a rogue never got anyone into anything but trouble."

            "It's gotten us out of more than one Apocalypse," Giles said quietly.  "During which you undoubtedly stood around wondering how on earth you were going to help without getting your skirts dirty."

            It would have been a perfect exit if Wesley hadn't laughed.

~~~

            "All right, everyone, I've got some news."  At the scattered moans that went through the group, Buffy rolled her eyes.  "It's good news, and it will only take a minute.  The class has gotten so large—" A cheer went through the group at this.  "That I'm going to have to split it up.  Those of you switched to the earlier class will have a different instructor."  Protests started at a low roar and increased in volume.  Though it dismayed her to think she'd disappoint the people she had come to care about, it gave Buffy a little thrill to know they were so attached to her.

            She'd never had so many people attached to her, ever.  And if she died, she knew there wouldn't just be someone else called to replace her immediately.

            "Hey," she raised her voice so they could hear her.  "It's not so bad.  It's someone you know."  Gesturing to Kelly, she grinned.  "See?  It's Kelly!  Now all the guys can check out her butt easier, she'll be in the front of a class."

            "Buffy," Kelly hissed, barely resisting the urge to put her hands over the mentioned part.

            "We have sign-up sheets outside the class," Buffy added.  "Now go home!"

            As the people filed out of the classroom, Kelly sighed miserably.  "No one's going to sign up for my class," she said.  "They all love you too much."

            "Nah."  Buffy smiled at Kelly and added, "Trust me, plenty of people have found it easy enough to leave me."  

            Kelly said nothing, but thought of the people in Los Angeles who were working their butts off to help the legendary Slayer.  No, she doubted it was easy for anyone at all to let go of Buffy.  

            She hoped, for Buffy's sake, that would hold true for one person in particular.  She'd been having dreams, every other night like clockwork, that showed her two men in various places, with various people.

            One of them couldn't be described as anything but beautiful, his skin a dusky gold color, his eyes too pale for her to pin down a color, and his hair inky black and spilling around his shoulders.  He looked angry, he looked sad, he looked hopeful.

            The other was a man with a chiseled face and cheekbones Kelly herself would have killed for.  More often than not, his mouth was in a pouty smirk and his sandy hair was in complete chaos.  There was little to him, though, little action, little passion, and when he turned, she could see that his eyes were a bright, shocking blue.  

            "His eyes," Buffy had said insistently when she'd spoken of her own dream, and Kelly could see now why she had.

            There were ghosts in those eyes, ghosts and demons and pain and… suffering that needed to be eased.

            Kelly was fairly certain her dreams held the one person who didn't find it easy to leave Buffy.


	17. 16 Concealing and Revealing

            They had no idea where to start.  They had holed up for the remainder of the evening in an inn, and now that morning had come around, they needed to figure out what to do.  Sitting at an open-air café blocks away from the Council, Laramie and Spike tried to puzzle out what, precisely, their next move would be.  Taking a sip of his ever-present coffee, Laramie cursed aloud.

            "Careful, that's hot," Spike said sardonically, drumming his fingers on the table and wondering if there was any way to nick his cigarettes back from Ramie.  

            "No, no," Laramie sat down his cup of coffee and cursed again.  "Damn it, I was counting on the Council to tell us where she was.  Your Slayer.  Now we have no idea."

            Spike hadn't thought of that.  In truth, he hadn't thought of much of anything since entering into the 21st century.  When his mind wandered, it inevitably wandered to bad things, bad memories, painful recollections that were no doubt engineered to try to sway him off his course of action.  So instead of thinking, he took the last words of Ramie's sentences and came up with rhymes for them.

            He was frankly stumped on "idea," so he forced himself back into the conversation.  "Look at me, bein' all shocked that the Council would ruin something else for us.  But…" he trailed off, looking up at the sky and wishing once again for a cigarette.  Truly, he was a much better conversationalist if he just had something to do with his hands.  He snatched a sugar packet from the table in front of him and began creasing it in his fingers.  A little better… "But you didn't expect it to be that easy, did you, Ramie?  You never find true love right off the bat, it's gotta be a big trial."  _Like letting some psychotic demon with halogen eyes beat the stuffing out of you.  There's a big trial._  But he would have done it again in a heartbeat, if he could have survived it.

            Laramie couldn't argue.  His mother had often told him that a mark of true love was that it was never easy.  There were always difficulties.  Thinking of a Titian vampire roaming the streets of the London of his time, Ramie sighed.  Difficulties, indeed.  "So what do you—"

            "Bloody hell," Spike grunted, swinging his chair around so he sat behind Ramie.  "Don't move."

            Laramie sipped his coffee casually, letting the solid bulk of his body hide Spike's slender frame.  He saw two men walking down the street, looking left to right with an eerie but familiar concentration.

            They were Watchers, no doubt.  One of them was older, the lines of his face etched into a rugged worldliness, an undeniable air of keen intelligence surrounding him.  But there was something else, a barely constrained brutality under the bookish exterior.  

            The other was younger, a man just coming into his confidence, judging by the way he moved.  He stood a half step behind the older man, his eyes narrowed in the look of a man who has dealt with trouble more than he had ever expected to.  

            "You know them?" Laramie asked, hardly moving his lips.

            "Your damn straight I do," Spike retorted softly.  "The older man… that's Rupert.  He's a fairly decent bloke, but he's tried to have me killed a few times.  He's not fond of the Council, but—"

            "But you don't know who you can trust," Ramie finished easily.  "The younger?"

            "Wanker," Spike said decisively.  "Or at least he used to be a right big one.  Works with the Grand Royal Ponce himself, in L.A.  Or to use his proper title, Queen Nancy."

            Ramie considered himself a fairly sharp man, but Spike was making minimal sense.  It was good to keep him talking, Ramie reasoned, so he didn't mention that he was completely lost.  

            "Oh, bugger it," Spike said, and Laramie felt the man's weight shift behind him.  "I'm going after them.  They'd know where she was."

            Laramie stayed exactly where he was, but his right arm winged behind him and clamped down on Spike's arm.  "Don't move," he said in a low voice.  "If you don't know whether or not they work for the Council, it won't be worth asking them where she is.  They may take you back to the Council just the same."

            "At least then I'd know," Spike said, trying to twist out of Ramie's grasp.  He was starting to regret calling the man a ponce.  He had a grip like a bloody vice.  "I'd know if she was alive, Ramie."

            "If she weren't alive, the Hub wouldn't have sent you here.  I told him you were looking for a place where you could be together."  Spike seemed to understand the logic, as he relaxed.  

            "I don't want to wait, Laramie.  She's the only good thing I have left, and I don't even have her."  And she could fill the emptiness.  She always had before, even when she didn't want to.

            "Then let's go find her," Ramie said, leaning and looking down the street where the two Watchers had disappeared.  

~~~

            She'd rehearsed it a hundred times over, and still couldn't get it right.  

            Buffy hated swallowing her pride.  But when he picked up the phone, she plowed ahead, because she was resolved to do what she had to do in order to find Spike.  "Angel?"

            It had been a long time, too long, since he'd heard her voice.  She hadn't even called as he was sure she meant to after finding out he'd kept the Shanshu prophecy from her.  As a consequence, he'd spent months choking on and around the apology that lay ready in his throat.  "Hello, Buffy," he said quietly, wondering if now was when she would tell him how much she hated him.

            "I didn't want to call," she said, trying to keep her voice cold.  It was hard, though, to keep everything out of it.  Her feelings for Angel, past and present, her feelings for Spike, past and always… they threatened to make her tremble even as she steeled herself further.  "But you're the only one who's got answers for me."

            Answers.  After all this time, what she wanted from him was answers. _ You're lucky she wants anything from you at all,_ he reminded himself.  "Well, I suppose you're the one who's got questions for me, then."

            Buffy took a deep breath.  "I've been having dreams lately.  Slayer dreams.  And there's another Slayer here who's had them, too."

            "Kelly?" Angel asked without thinking.  When he heard her indrawn breath, he slammed a hand to his head.  _Way to speak without thinking._  But there was something about her that always scrambled his circuits, and hadn't that always been the problem?  Wasn't that why he left?

            "How did you know that?" Buffy asked slowly.  

            "Giles and Wesley have track of all the new Slayers around the country," he said, thinking on his feet.  "They mentioned a girl in Indiana.  I just remembered her name because it means warrior."

            It was completely reasonable, but he was talking fast, nearly stumbling on his words.  Buffy filed a mental note to ask Kelly about possible contact from Giles or Wesley and let it rest.  "Fine.  I just need to know if you've heard anything.  You know, about Spike.  About William."

            At the sound of Spike's given name on her lips, Angel's heart twisted.  "Maybe," he said, his voice rough.  "I don't know yet if it's him or not."

            "Would you tell me if it were?" she retorted quickly, her own voice jagging over the bright hope that wanted to peak inside her.  When he didn't answer, she sighed.  "I'm sorry.  I'm just—"

            "No.  I deserve it," Angel said, planting the heel of his hand in the center of his forehead and taking a deep breath to steady himself.  When would it ever be over?  When would it stop being _her_, eternally her?  

            But she merely laughed, a sad small laugh that did nothing to alleviate his pain.  "Still being the martyr, huh?  Here I thought you'd have gotten over that when you left me for my own good."  The words came tripping out before she could stop them, pent up and rotting inside her.  She had done everything in her power to hold onto him, and he had gone anyway.  But Spike… she had pushed as hard as she could, as often as she could, and he stuck.  He stuck because, all along, that was what she was hoping he would do.

            "What do you want me to say?" Angel said, his throat feeling torn and raw.  "What do you want to hear?"

            "I want you to say you're sorry," Buffy said, trying to hold back tears.  "But I want you to mean it."

            "You know I wish it could have been different."

            "That's not what I wanted to hear.  Tell me you're happy for me, Angel.  Tell me if I find someone else, you'll be happy for me.  Because you sure couldn't do it last time."

            "I'll be happy for you when you find someone worth you.  That wasn't me, and I don't think it's Spike, either," Angel burst out.  "And there's nothing you can do about that.  Nothing you can do to erase the years I spent side-by-side with him, watching him do the same things I did.  And don't tell me 'he's different,' because that doesn't change my memories."  He took a deep breath and felt a little of the hurt slip out of him at his revelation.  "And if he's human, I don't know that I have it in me to be happy for you, Buffy.  You forget awfully easily that soul or no, there always lurks a demon inside a vampire."

            "You forget awfully easily that he won't be a vampire when I find him again," Buffy said quietly, knowing that the bridge they'd crossed only went one way.  "I should go."

            "Now there's something I understand," Angel said, chuffing out a small laugh.  "Good-bye, Buffy."

            Knowing it could be the last conversation they had, Buffy said good-bye and hung up with eyes that were dry.


	18. 17 Arguing and Discussing

            "I have changed my mind," Ramie said with finality, his eyes wide as he surveyed the scene around them.

            Spike paused in his rhyming—he had gotten to 'hind'—and shook his head.  "Oh, no you don't.  I didn't spend two bloody days getting fake papers made and nicking money from pickpockets just to have you change your mind."  

            "If you had not given all the papers I gave you to the Council, it wouldn't have been so hard to get fake papers," Ramie sniped back, feeling his stomach roll over.  He had included a great number of things in that packet of papers for William Bryce, including a type-written birth certificate and a pass into the Council libraries. 

            "I thought they'd be convinced," Spike said petulantly, reaching out to flick Laramie's ear.  What that got him was a cuff across the head and a rousing set of name-calling.

            "Don't call me a pansy," Spike said, genuinely amused.  "You're the lily-livered wanker who's decided he can't go to America unless we take a bleedin' boat—which we're not."  He leaned back and crossed his ankles, watching another plane take off.  The airport was such a lovely place, really.  That is, it was lovely if you were accustomed to the sight of airplanes.

            "When we left, airplanes were a foolish experiment by a couple of American morons, contraptions that sputtered and belched smoke and couldn't even go the length of a beach.  Now you are telling me it is perfectly safe and perfectly rational to get in one of those great metal beasts and go across the ocean?"  At Spike's innocuous grin, Ramie slumped farther into his seat and vowed not to be sick.

~~~

            She expected to find Buffy doing any number of things an hour before her scheduled class.  Warming up, burning off the excess energy that she didn't want seeping out during class, or sending Dawn off for another evening class at the college.  Sometimes, Kelly found her crying at this time of day, crying over things that she wouldn't talk about.

            She didn't expect to find her cleaning.

            "Buffy?"  Kelly walked into the house after knocking a few times and receiving no answer, her curiosity peaked.  "You in here?"

            "In here," was the muffled reply from the master bedroom.  Kelly walked to the doorway and gasped. 

            Clothes lay everywhere, piles strewn over the bed, the floor.  Exactly half of the dresser had been cleaned off, half the drawers emptied.  Half of the hangers in the closet stood in wait of garments, their previous occupants scattered willy-nilly.

            "Buffy, what on earth are you doing?"  Kelly picked a sheer black blouse out of the pile, recognizing it as one Buffy had worn only a few nights ago.  The clothes seemed pulled at random, some sleeveless, some turtlenecks, coats, skirts, pants.  There was no pattern, no system, and as far as Kelly could see, no reason at all.  "Buffy?"

            Buffy sat in the middle of the floor, a long gray skirt clasped in her hands.  She looked up at Kelly with big eyes and said, "I have to make room for him."

            Kelly's blue eyes narrowed in confusion and she knelt to join Buffy on the floor, twining gentle fingers with Buffy's tense ones.  _You need your real friends_, she thought mournfully.  _You don't know that yet, but you need them.  I don't know what to do._  "Make room for who?"

            "If he comes back, he'll need places to put his things, his clothes and his… things, whatever made him smell so good, smell like him, and he'll need a place to sleep, and so I need to get rid of some of these pillows, because who can sleep in a bed with fifteen pillows?"  She squeezed her eyes shut, a single tear spilling out.  "Why did I buy so many pillows?"

            Kelly risked a glance at the decorative pillows stacked in the corner, then looked back at Buffy.  "Is it Spike?  Is he coming back?"

            "I don't know," Buffy said, shaking her head.  "But I want to be ready if he does."  She tried to stand, got her feet tangled in a denim jacket, stumbled.  She caught herself on the edge of the dresser and raised desperate eyes to Kelly, who stood motionless.  "What if he comes back, but he doesn't come back to me?"

            "He will," Kelly said, warring within herself between truth and prudence.  "Buffy, he will come back to you.  They're looking for him.  They'll help him find you."

            She should have been confused, should have had no idea what Kelly was talking about.  But Buffy's mind flew back to Angel's immediate recognition of Kelly.  "Which ones?  Which ones are looking for him?"

            "Mr. Giles and Mr. Wyndham-Price."  

            It was odd, Buffy thought, to hear their names off her lips, to hear the formality behind it and know that her friends had come together though the distance was long.  Indiana and California weren't so far away, after all.  But at the moment, Buffy was glad for it.  "He didn't tell me.  Angel didn't tell me."

            "He didn't tell you I called because I asked him not to.  I didn't mean to pry, I just wanted to help—"

            Buffy covered the younger girl's hand with hers and shook her head.  "I mean he didn't tell me about Giles, and Wesley."  She took a deep breath and let it out in a long, shaky sigh.  

            "They'll find him," Kelly said, not at all sure of her words.  Then, to her shock and amazement, Buffy did something she'd never done before.  She laid her head on Kelly's shoulder and let herself relax.  

~~~

            "They said he's been there."  Xander paced in the living room of the small apartment, chewing on his thumbnail.  "That's good, right?  Shouldn't we tell Buffy?"

            Willow crunched up her face as she deliberated.  "Yes.  No.  You know, I gotta say, I don't know.  I mean, what if it's not him?  Orrrr… what if he's all 'I'm human now, I need to sow my wild oats?'"

            "Will, Spike spent a hundred plus years without a soul, and the only sowing he did was with that psycho Dru, and then flaky Harmony.  I don't think he's much of a sower… or a planter… not that I would know how he plants, I just…" Xander waved his hand, looking disgusted.  "Never mind."

            "I brought home guests," Kennedy's voice bounced through the apartment, followed closely by the slamming door.  As she entered the living room, Willow could see Robin and Faith close behind.  

            "Been out patrollin'," Faith said easily.  Xander noted with mingled disbelief and interest how she gloved her hand in Wood's easily.  As though it were natural.

            "What's with the sober-slash-happy faces?" Kennedy asked, leaning down to kiss Willow's cheek.  

            "Spike's back," Xander replied tersely.  He was still wary of Kennedy.  It came along with the territory of best friend; if anyone hurt Willow, they'd have to deal with him, as well.  But there was something about her that rubbed Xander the wrong way, and living in the same close quarters as her was doing nothing but increasing the rubbing.  Wincing at his own thoughts, Xander waited for a reaction.

            "Damn," Faith said under her breath.  "For real?"

            "For realest," Willow replied.  

            "Does Buffy know?"  The ex-principal tried to keep his tone conversational, nonchalant, but didn't succeed; Faith gave his hand a squeeze, either by way of reassurance or warning.  He gladly took it as both.

            "No," Xander said.  "And that catches you up on the discussion.  We were just discussing the Buffy knowing factor when you all walked in."  

            "It's good news, man.  B would wanna know."  Faith shrugged as though that simple fact precluded any discussion.  

            It should have been that simple, Willow thought.  It should always be that simple.  Where did it get complicated?  "She's at work now, though."

            "She's an adult.  You know, maybe she doesn't always want her gang to help her out.  Did you ever think of that?  Did you ever think that's why she went all the way across the freakin' country?"  Kennedy rolled her eyes.

            "Kennedy, honey," Willow said, lacing her fingers together.  "True friendship isn't about giving people help when they want it.  It's about giving them help even when they don't want it."  She thought of Xander, risking life and limb to bring her out of the magic-induced rage she had worked herself into after Tara's death.  At the same time, Faith thought of the second chance she'd gotten even though she never asked for it.

            But Kennedy didn't know these things, and the things she knew in her head didn't connect with her heart.  "I'm going to shower and go to bed," she said snappishly, trying not to be offended and failing miserably. 

            "So where is he?" Faith asked, completely unperturbed by the tension Kennedy had left suspended behind her.  There were many more things in life to be concerned with than a few tantrums, Faith thought.

            "We don't know," Xander said.  "Giles and Wesley went to find him."

            "They won't be able to," Robin said quietly, his brow furrowing.  "Not if he doesn't want them to."

            "Well, we'll just have to hope he wants them to," Willow said with forced brightness, her thoughts on her girlfriend.  "I—I think I'm going to go to bed," she said, heading for the bedroom.

            Faith watched Willow go with a sense of give and take.  It was just a way of life.  As some things came together, others came apart.


	19. 18 Traveling and Staying

            "Whoever heard of taking a friggin' connecting flight in Indiana?  Who really goes to Indiana?"  Spike prowled the airport in Indianapolis, his long strides repeatedly making the distance back and forth in front of one of the huge windows in the airport.  

            "I've never even heard of Indiana," Ramie said, plucking casually at the seam running the outside of his jeans.  He would die before he would admit that being on the ground was a great more easy than being in the air.  He hadn't gotten sick once and he was damned proud of it.  He scowled at the plane taking off from the runway.  Bizarre contraptions.  

            "How many people need to go from Indiana to Los Angeles?" Spike asked, stopping in front of Ramie.

            "I thought you didn't care," Laramie finally said, meeting Spike's eyes.  What he saw there was impatience borne of care, and plenty of it.  Care that he thought only a soul could endow.

            Spike didn't respond but tried to satisfy his overwhelming need to move by pacing back and forth.  When he finally stopped in front of Laramie, his eyes were intense and wide.  "What if she doesn't love me when we get back?  What if she really was lying?"

            "What if she has decided to enter a convent, William?"  Laramie rolled his eyes and stood.  "I believe that is our flight number they are calling in that terribly loud omniscient voice."

            Spike shoved the fragile spectacles he still wore up the bridge of his nose and ran after Laramie.

~~~

            "Now, it's much harder to do these things outside on the actual ground than it is on a gym mat, so I want you to be careful."  Buffy surveyed her class, whom she had taken into the fitness center's fenced backyard to practice.  If they were going to learn true self-defense, eventually they'd need to learn to use the things around them.  "Now, if I grab you like this—"  She began to demonstrate on a student when a plane from the nearby airport flew overhead, drowning her out.  

            She stopped, scowling up at the planes.  "Stupid planes.  They're so loud," she said once it had passed.  "Who really wants to leave Indiana, anyway?"  After the group had stopped laughing, she continued with the lesson.

            It was hard work, not only keeping enough patience to teach a bunch of nice, normal people how to protect themselves and how to keep themselves fit, but also holding herself back.  More than anything, it was hard to keep her spirits up and her mind on task when all she could think about was Spike.  

            "All right, ladies and gentlemen," Buffy said, breaking her stance and putting her hands on her hips, grinning widely at the tired, winded group.  "I think I've tortured you enough for the day."

            "Hear, hear," a middle-aged woman in the front of the group said, mopping sweat from her brow.

            "So, we're done for the day.  I'll see you next week."  As they hurried back into the building to gather their things, she yelled after them.  "Oh, and eat right this weekend!  And exercise, okay, don't just sit around!"  Blowing out a breath, she frowned.  "They'll all be couch potatoes after ten minutes at home," she surmised.

            "Well, that's a risk you'll have to take."  Paul lagged behind, his long hands tangled into the tearaway pants he'd removed at the beginning of the lesson.  "I just wanted to say thanks."

            Buffy wiped sweat from her own brow and looked up, up, up at him.  He was so darned tall.  "For what?"

            "For being cool about everything.  And for teaching a damned… darned… good class.  Coach says I'm not tripping over other players' feet now, so that's good."  He grinned and shrugged.

            Buffy laughed and nodded.  "Well, I'm glad to hear that."

            "I'm quitting.  I mean, I was thinkin' about joining Kelly's class, but when spring semester starts, I won't be able to fit it in anymore.  I figured I'd say goodbye and thanks and all that."

            Buffy hated herself for the small twinge of relief she felt.  For a moment, she'd been afraid he'd try and ask her out again.  But he was already moving toward the door to the center, and wasn't gawking at her in that nerve-wracking manner.  "Well, you're welcome and all that," she said.  "Sometime I'll catch one of the ball games and cheer you on."

            Paul laughed and shook his head and he opened the door and stood in the doorway.  "No offense, Ms. Summers, but you don't strike me as much of a cheerleader."  So saying, he shut the door and left.  

            Buffy laughed about that for at least ten minutes before she headed home.  

~~~

            "They're not here anymore."  Giles took off his glasses, wiped the back of his hand over his eyes, and perched them on the tip of his nose again.  "We've missed them."

            "Well, we were traveling nearly a day behind them, you can hardly be surprised by that," Wesley snapped, frustrated.  The last thing he wanted was to climb into another damned plane.  He was sick of planes.  He wanted to sleep.

            "They'll have gone to Los Angeles," Giles continued as though Wesley hadn't said anything.  He turned and looked at Wesley searchingly.  "I'm going to the airport to see if they've been sighted there.  If it turns out they have, indeed, gone to America, then you can relax."  Wesley looked so hopeful that it nearly pained Giles.  "We'll stay here, in that event.  I have a feeling the Council needs a makeover worse than Spike needs a babysitter."

            Wesley stayed silent all the way to the airport, playing things over in his head.  He'd been a cookie-cutter Council man in the beginning of his career as a Watcher, and had done, in his opinion, a very nice turnaround.  Being back in London, back with the Council, was a lot for him to handle.       

            He was deathly scared he would be pulled back in, and that was the last thing he wanted.  He'd made himself a life in L.A..  Not an easy one, but a life nonetheless.  Chasing an ex-vampire who'd been desouled was more his style these days than nattering with the internal bureaucracy of the Council.

            "I'm going back to Los Angeles no matter what," he said suddenly.  "You can go back to the Council and whatnot, but when we go to the airport, I'm buying myself a ticket and I'm going back."

            "What about the Council?" Giles asked, trying to hide his amusement.  He was actually proud of the young man for taking a stand, if in fact that was what he was doing.

            "You said it yourself this morning.  I'm ashamed to ever have been associated with them.  Now, let's go.  The sooner we get there, the sooner I get back to someplace where I can actually make a difference."

            _Bravo_, Giles thought with a smile.  Things could turn out all right, after all. 

~~~

            "We need to talk."  

            She'd been dreading the words for weeks, but she'd known they were coming.  There was no mistaking the tension, the long looks, the resentment from the others.  She'd been expecting it even before the big fight had gone down.  Now, as Willow stood in front of her with a downcast expression, Kennedy couldn't remember any of the scenarios she'd played out in her head. 

            "What's up, Red?"  Kennedy tied her hair back from her face and regarded Willow frankly.

            "This thing—" Willow gestured vaguely with her hands.  "This whatever you have against Buffy, or with Buffy, or whatever… it's not good."  

            "You mean it's… how does Xander put it?  Of the bad?"  Kennedy said, trying to lighten the moment and ease the clench in her stomach.  But it got no smile from Willow, only a furrowing of the brow.  The witch sat on the edge of the bed and sighed.

            "Kennedy, baby, you gotta realize… big things are happening right now, and we need everyone to be supportive.  The last few months were hard on everyone."

            "That's right," Kennedy said stiffly.  "Hard on everyone.  Hard on the potentials, hard on you.  You didn't want to use magic and you did, I know how much that took."

            "Listen to me, Kennedy," Willow's voice rose and her eyes met the younger girl's.  "You and I?  We should count ourselves lucky.  We didn't lose each other like Xander lost Anya, or like Buffy lost Spike.  Try and understand that, okay?  Just, for the sake of everyone, put aside whatever Slayer jealousy issues you've got, and be with me.  Really be with me."

            Kennedy took Willow's hand and closed her eyes, trying not to feel guilty.  At last, she just let the guilt wash over her and she sighed.  "Tell me about her," she said finally.  "I don't know what she went through, so why don't you tell me?"

            Willow smiled with relief and started to speak.


	20. 19 Uniting and Dividing

            He knew what was coming.  He'd had plenty of warning, both from every source he had underground, and from Giles's phone call earlier that day.

            Angel knew what was coming, but he didn't know if he could handle it.  Tapping his long fingers on the desk and glancing at the clock for what seemed like the thousandth time, he wondered if he should just leave, just plain not be there when they came.

            He didn't want to see Spike.

            He stopped drumming his fingers abruptly, snagging his coat and starting for the door.  It burst open before he could get any farther.

            "Going somewhere, nancy?"  

~~~

            "We shouldn't tell her."  Xander sat on the coffee table in front of Willow and clasped his hands loosely together between his knees.

            Willow looked up from the spellbook she was reading, confusion clearly written on her features.  "Umm… what happened to 'good thing, tell Buffy'?"

            Xander wrinkled up his nose and plowed into explanation.  "Well, okay, it's like this, see?  We don't have any idea what's going on here, which is customary for me, but not for you, so take it from me, I'm the original know-nothing guy, and I know how this not knowing thing works."  He paused in mid-rant to take a breath and remind himself where, exactly, he was going with the speech.  "Anyway… if we don't know where he is or where he's headed, it's just cruel to tell her.  We really don't know much more than she does."

            Willow closed the book and considered Xander's words.  "As much as I hate to say this, we should go ask Angel if he knows anything.  You know, if he does, maybe we'll know enough to tell her."

            "I thought you were all into the Angel-hatin' lately."  

            "I was, but you know me, I'm still dorky Willow who not only can't hold a grudge, but she'll do anything to learn new information."  She stood up and smiled at her best friend.

            Xander grinned and stood up as well, putting his arm around Willow and kissing the top of her head.  "As long as you don't force me to sit with you in the library for hours on end, we're good to go."

~~~

            It was odd, hearing the words come out in that halfbreed hybrid of Spike's and William's voices, the insult so old and the voice so melded.  It and the sight of William, sandy, curly hair, bespectacled, unsure William, standing at his doorway made Angel stumble back.

            He'd never once imagined that Spike would come back looking like the gentleman he'd once been.

            Laramie peered around Spike, trying to hide his fascination with the phenomenon of a souled vampire, giving Angel a convenient distraction.  "Who's that?" he asked, nodding toward Laramie.

            "A friend," Spike said tersely.  The less said to the poof, the better.  "I just came for a bit of information, friend, not to play catch-up with you.  In fact, I could care less what you've been up to."

            "I could say the same," Angel said, tilting his head and trying to see farther into those blue eyes.  It was undoubtedly a human standing in front of him; the scent of life was pouring off him in waves.  There was, however, no sign of a soul.

            "You did it," Angel said.  "You sold your soul to come back and torment Buffy."

            Laramie grabbed Spike and held him before he could lunge at Angel.  "Don't," he said quietly into Spike's ear, flicking his pale eyes up to the tall vampire.  "Don't charge him.  You can't hurt him now, anyway."

            _Oh, but he can,_ Angel thought, seeing the determination in those cultured eyes, seeing not only Spike and William but an incredible amount of determination as well.  "Too bad your so-called love for Buffy didn't die when you did," Angel said flatly, turning back to his desk.

            "I can hardly help it if you're jealous," Spike said, but his voice was quiet now, with renewed patience.  He could hardly expect Angel to help him find Buffy so easily.  Would he help, in Angel's shoes?

            He would have killed anyone looking for her, he thought.

            "I need to know where she is, Angel.  She's the only reason I came back."  _She's the only reason I **am,**_ Spike thought.  The manners he'd been bred to forced themselves to the surface much as his demon had once upon a time.  "Please."

            "Hey, look, busy day in the offices of Angel Investigations.  Hey, guys, whatever your trouble is, he's the guy to fix it.  Angel, Angel, he's our man—" Xander's taunt as he walked through the door of Angel's office fell silent as the two men turned to face him.  He narrowed his eyes as though trying to place them, tilted his head, then stepped back in shock, his eyes widening.  "Holy crap!" he exclaimed, his voice squeaking.  "It's you, only no—" he waved a hand around in the general vicinity of his head.  "Bleachity-bleach-bleach."  

            Spike smirked.  "Hello, Harris," he said.  Leaning over to see beyond Xander, the smirk softened into a smile.  "'Lo, Red."

            Willow stepped around and smiled at Spike with a complete lack of surprise.  "Hello, William," she said, grinning cheesily.  

            "And hello, hired muscle," Xander said, sizing up Laramie.  "You ever do any construction?"

            "I beg your pardon?" Laramie's head was reeling.  Why did all these people talk so bloody fast? 

            "He's a Watcher," Angel said, crossing his arms over his chest. 

            "How did you know that?" Laramie raised an eyebrow coolly.

            "You smell like it," was the response he got.

            "As much as I'm enjoying the reunion, kids, I came for one thing.  Where's the Slayer?"  It didn't sound right, didn't feel right coming off his lips, so he tried again.  "Where's Buffy?"

            "I thought you'd never ask," Willow said, stepping forward and shooting a glare at Angel.  Keeping her eyes steadily on the souled vampire's eyes, she spoke to Spike.  "I'll even draw you a map if you want it."

~~~

            She'd gone to bed early.  And why shouldn't she?  She'd taught two classes the evening before, trained and patrolled with Kelly, and attempted to help Dawn study.  On top of it all, what little sleep Buffy gotten had been riddled with dreams and visions that she had no way of interpreting.

            _Angel, weeping alone.___

_            A large man in a white suit, followed by a skinny man in leather._

_            The two men she'd seen before, heads bent together._

_            Buffy herself, placing a candle in the window._

            She awoke slowly, tossing and murmuring her way back into the world of wakefulness.  Looking at the clock, she saw she'd slept for ten hours, something she hadn't let herself do in a long, long time.  "Dawn?" she called out, kicking the sheet off her legs and brushing her tangled hair away from her face.

            "In the kitchen," Dawn's voice carried through the small house.  

            Buffy waded through the piles of clothing that were still on her floor, her heart breaking just a little more as she looked at the empty half of the dresser, of the closet, of the bed.  

            Every time she awoke, she hoped she would find them full.

            "Making breakfast?" Buffy asked on a yawn.  The kitchen smelled… burnt.  Dawn held a pancake turner in her hand and was looking woefully at the blackened mess in the pan in front of her.  "Okay, let me rephrase," Buffy said, fanning the air in front of her with her hand.  "Making cinders?"

            Dawn slapped the turner into the pan, sending small black crumbs scattering over the counter.  "I've been watching you guys make pancakes for, like, ever.  Technically, I'm a billion years old.  I've survived Apocalypses, plural, I'm in high school and taking college courses, but I can't make a stupid pancake?  Unfair!"  She crossed her arms in a huff and turned to her sister.  "Sorry if I woke ya up."  It was the first time since moving to Indiana that Dawn remembered being up before Buffy.  

            "Sorry I wasn't up to make breakfast," Buffy said in return.  She looked at the clock, then around the kitchen.  "But… we have cookies!"

            Dawn giggled, spying the package of Oreos on the counter.  "Cookies for breakfast?"

            Buffy wrinkled her nose.  "Just this once?" she asked hopefully.  "It is Friday, after all."

            Dawn all but bolted for the milk in the refrigerator.  "Heck yeah!"

            They'd gone through a sinful number of the sandwich cookies by the time Dawn needed to leave for school.  Grabbing her bags, she leaned over to kiss Buffy on the cheek.  

            "Ow!" she said as Buffy grabbed her cheeks.  "Buffy!  What the heck are you doing?"

            "Breathe," Buffy demanded, keeping her face close to her sister's.  When Dawn complied, she nodded.  "Okay."

            "Psycho much?!"

            Buffy tugged Dawn's ponytail and kept her voice completely serious.  "Did you think I'd send you to school with telltale chocolate breath?  No more social workers for me, thank you very much.  Now go!"  Dawn's laughter as she ran out the door was one of the sweetest sounds in the world.  Buffy sat back, eyeing the pancake mess with a critical eye.  It might be best, she thought, to just throw the whole pan away.  

            Brushing cookie crumbs off the front of her pajamas, she stood to clear the mess away.  When she heard the door open and close, she rolled her eyes.  "What'd you forget?" she called out, her eyes already scanning the room for Dawn's schoolbooks. 

            "You," the voice returned, and the world came to a halt.


	21. 20 Buffy and Spike

**Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed this piece… you're all fantastic, and I'm glad to have entertained.  After this chapter, there is an epilogue, so no frets… all will be tied up in a solid, if not a bit hokey, way.  I've truly loved being inspired with this piece, and being reviewed by other Buffy and Spike fans.  Thanks again.**

            The world froze, the colors in it abnormally bright.  Buffy's eyes had locked with Spike's, and though she hadn't recognized the sandy-haired, foppish man in her dreams, there was no mistaking the eyes.  She tried to speak, but found she couldn't; the air pressure had grown unbearably low, her ears popping and her breaths shallow.  The pain in her ears, her head, was excruciating, and she thought she was going to have to take the last of her breath to scream when—

            The world came back into normal focus with an audible pop, making Buffy stumble.  

            "Spike!" she said, starting forward.  "William!"  She reached out for him, and he crumpled to the floor.  

~~~

            He'd gotten a look at her, one good, solid look before everything seemed to slow down, the already unbearably humid air thickening to nearly solid.  He was still a bit unaccustomed to breathing, to the weight of it, the rhythm, and he was near to hyperventilating from the weight around him.  But it was beyond him now, beyond his caring, for she was standing in front of him.

            He'd thought he didn't care, didn't remember, but even a soulless man could appreciate beauty.  He'd never seen anything more beautiful than the relaxed slayer, recumbent in her pajamas and tousled hair.  His lips curved in a sweet, sweet smile completely unlike any expression Spike had ever worn.  

            William smiled at the woman he knew he could love just before the world slammed into him.

~~~  
            Ramie was the only one who saw it, he was certain.  The air behind Spike's Slayer shimmered like air above a desert floor, warping itself and forming into something new, atoms and molecules shifting to make way for something that hadn't been there before.

            The Slayer froze where she was just when the disturbance started to solidify, a face clearly forming in the sheen of air.  William Bryce's face, gelling like cooling wax in midair, followed by the rest of his body.  His eyes, harder even than Spike's soulless gaze, roved over the Slayer and he winked, a lascivious grin shaping those full lips under the chiseled cheekbones.

            The Hub had arrived.

~~~

            She knelt at his side, her hands roaming over his narrow, pale face, gently fluttering over his lips, lips that had met hers not so long ago.  Buffy drew in a quick breath as she felt what she hadn't expected: warm breath flowing out from the two warm lips.  No more unyielding coolness, no more breathless proclamations.  Spike, no matter how unconscious he was at the moment, was alive.  

            He was human.

            "Wake up," she said, shaking him, taking care to keep her touch gentle.  What was she to do with him now that his strength no longer matched hers?  And why hadn't she bothered with gentility before?  "Wake up, wake up, wake up," she chanted desperately, her eyes finally flying to the broad-shouldered man who stood in the doorway.  "What's the matter with him?"

            "He doesn't know," a voice said from behind her.  She turned to look, her hair sweeping over one shoulder.  

            Another William strode toward her, in identical clothing to the one on the floor.  

            _I'm still asleep,_ she concluded.  _Of course I am._  But she had seen stranger things in her life.  A mayor that ate the principal, Jonathan as a superhero, two Xanders.  She could believe this as well as she could believe anything else.  

            "I did not call you, nor did she," the long-haired, dark man spoke to the second William.  "Why are you here, Hub?"

            "Won't you just chill out, Alain?" the Hub said in the sarcastic, overdrawn tones of Spike at his most exasperated.  "I came because I was sent, not because I was called."  He let out a snort and raised an eyebrow at the slight girl kneeling on the floor.  "A girl, a girl, always about a girl," he chanted.  "Though she's a sight prettier than some I've taken souls for."

            "What are you?" Buffy asked, her voice full of loathing.  There was something she couldn't quite put her finger on, something slimy about him that made her skin crawl.  It was like watching something through a flash-lit scrim; sometimes he looked solid, like William, and at brief, almost subliminal moments, there was a flash that lit what was beneath the face.

            "I'm his salvation, cutie, and don't you forget it."  The Hub nodded down at the unconscious Spike.  "I knocked him cold, because believe you me, bloke doesn't want to be awake for this."  He raised his hands and rubbed them together dramatically.

            "Stop," the man called Alain commanded.  "Explain yourself, Hub."

            "Stupid bloody humans!" the Hub roared, flinging his hands in the air.  "You're quite right to be eaten, you buggering, questioning, overcurious sods!"  Sighing and shoving the heels of his hands to his head in a gesture eerily like Spike's when his chip had worked, he spoke in low tones.  "The soul I'm wearing is a loan.  Only a loan, and I knew that when I took it from him."  His gaze wandered to Buffy, and he continued to speak.

            "He was slated to live his life out when he had fulfilled his destiny.  But saving the world was only part of his destiny, and so he was only slated to live out the life he'd begun long ago.  _You_ are his destiny, Slayer."  He looked up at William's traveling companion and sneered.  "You, Alain, were his traveling companion because the Powers demanded it.  Demanded that he have help in fulfilling his destiny, should he choose to do so."  He laid a hand on Buffy's head, making her jerk back in disgust.  "Now that he's here with you, love, he can live out his life.  But I have to give this pretty face back."

            "It doesn't look good on you, anyway," Buffy said, turning her attention back to William and brushing his hair back from his face.  The glasses were so thin, so fragile.  He looked… he looked like a scholar, she thought with a sad smile.  Her heart swelled and she blinked back tears.  "Give it back to him," she said, her voice strong and loud.  "I think he's earned it."

            "I think he's earned it," the Hub mocked in falsetto.  He flicked his fingers as though trying to rid them of something dirty, his face changing into an elderly Asian woman as he did so.  

            "Hello, love," Spike's voice, changed in ways Buffy couldn't identify, reached her ears just as tears spilled from her eyes.

            "You're back," she said, clasping his fingers in hers.  

            "I am," he agreed, struggling to sit up.  "All of me."  He pulled her to him with what little strength he had and put his arms around her. 

            He'd never been home before. 

~~~

            She'd felt in her heart that something was going on, and though she'd ordinarily have written it off as a load of hooey, Kelly didn't believe in coincidence much anymore.  She set off at a brisk walk from her house, two blocks away from Buffy's, but her steps had accelerated to a near-run by the time she was in sight of the small white house.

            Someone was sitting on the stoop of the house, and it sure as heck wasn't Dawn, and it sure as heck wasn't Buffy.  Immediately tensing herself for a fight, she stopped at the edge of the lawn.  "Hey," she called, one foot planted back to poise herself.  "Who the hell are you?"

            He'd been watching her approach, her arrival a distraction from his burning need for coffee.  She had come running down the sidewalk, going much faster than he was sure she was aware of.  Her curly hair bounced behind her, and he could see she was ready to fight him before she could even clearly see him.  He wasn't looking for a fight as she seemed to be; he merely escaped the house into the horrendously sticky weather because he'd felt rather superfluous, watching the two lovers reunite.  Now he just felt superfluous and hot. 

            _When did women learn to speak so brassily_? he wondered, tilting his head and looking at the approaching girl.  She was unsure of herself, he could see, her balance constantly changing, her eyes flitting around.  "I the hell am Laramie," he said simply.  "Charmed to meet you."

            She continued to approach him like a cat on the prowl, her eyes never leaving his.  When she had crossed half of the yard, she stopped and gasped in recognition.

            It was one of the men from her dream, he of the light eyes and… yup, there was all that gorgeous hair.  "You're here!" she said, dropping her fists and running the rest of the way to him.  "Is he with you?  Did he come?"

            Amused, Laramie stood as his manners demanded.  "Yes."  He extended a hand, waiting for her to place hers in it when she instead grabbed it and shook it, squeezing it harder than she intended in her excitement.  Hissing and throwing his pride to the wind, he jerked back his throbbing fingers.  "Slayer?" he said, cradling the hand against his chest.  He'd not be a bit shocked if his fingers were broken.  

            Biting her full lower lip nervously, she looked down at her shoes and nodded.  "Yeah.  Sorry."

            Women wearing pants.  It had been a been difficult to get accustomed to since landing in this time, but the more Laramie thought about it, the nicer it seemed.  Especially on some women.  _Oh, no, Laramie_, he told himself firmly.  _A Slayer is most definitely not someone whose lovely legs you need to look at._  "No matter," he said.  "At the moment, I have an extremely urgent request.  Lives depend upon it."  Her eyes widened and he could tell he had her attention.  "Tell me where I can find a good cup of coffee."

~~~

            It was weird.  Not the feelings, not the place, not anything that passed between them, but he had to admit, it was weird.  Women weren't supposed to carry men to bed.  "Let it go, love," he said when she started fussing over him.  He knew he looked like hell; the mirror at the foot of the bed had more than adequately showed him the purple crescents beneath his eyes, the wild mass of his hair, the crooked glasses.  He wasn't worthy of her.

            Buffy forced herself to stop straightening, stop fluffing pillows and pulling sheets.  Closing her eyes, she thought of the man she loved with all her heart, the man who had acted on instinct and had always known what she needed.  Opening her eyes with a smile, she leaned over the bed and slid her lips over hers, humming in approval when he kissed her back.

            They fit.  Of course they did, but it was amazing, after the months they'd had, after the years they'd had, to fit so well, so perfectly.  "You're warm," she mumbled, leaning back to let him catch his breath.  Catch his breath, she thought, a funny little thrill rippling through her chest.  It would take some getting used to.

            "You'll have to be gentle with me, ducks," he said reaching up a hand to cup her cheek.  

            Eyes sober, she nodded.  It was something she'd given some thought to, to the new state of Spike, to William.  But he wasn't finished speaking.

            "You'll have to be gentle," he reiterated.  "Because William is most definitely a virgin."  

            Her laughter had never sounded sweeter.


	22. Epilogue Here and Now

            _Three months later_

            "I don't think I'm supposed to do this," Buffy said, screwing up her nose.  "In fact, I think it's one of those things that's never been done before."  He'd asked her to do it a long time ago, but she'd told him he'd have to wait until now, until he got his strength up.  But it was an awfully difficult position to put herself in, if she did say so herself.

            She didn't think any Slayer had ever been married before.

            "Stop being a chicken," Willow said, fastening a sapphire necklace around Buffy's neck.  "There ya go.  Something blue."  She stepped back, a smile playing on her lips.  "You know, sapphires are said to have magical qualities of peace and loyalty."

            Buffy raised an eyebrow and snorted, the combination completely at odds with the wedding gown she wore and the feminine chignon her hair was pinned into.  "Peace has become synonymous with 'boredom' for me.  As in… 'man, I'm suffering from an overdose of peace.'  And as for loyalty?  You think I'd ever be disloyal to him?  Not in this life."  She shook her hands at her sides, trying to ignore the jitters that coursed through her stomach.

            Willow put her hands to Buffy's shoulders and gave a gentle squeeze, knowing that her friend was tense.  "Nor in the next.  I can see that in your eyes."  She kissed Buffy on each cheek and whispered 'Blessed be.'  

            "I think you saw it all along," Buffy said.  "I distinctly remember a spell gone wrong in which this exact same thing happened."

            "Not a spell this time," Willow persisted.  "Just good old-fashioned reality."  She cocked her head to listen to the music and let out a little 'eep.'  "That's my cue," she said.  "You're next."

            As Buffy pressed her hands to her very uneasy stomach, she thought that reality had a strange way of manifesting itself.

            "Looks like these cookies are done," she said, and went to face her destiny.

~~~

            "Who gives this bride to be married?"  The preacher cast his eyes around, confused.  Buffy had walked down the aisle on Giles's arm, but he was seated already and not making any move to speak.

            "I do."  A voice came from the windowless, dark corner of the rented building.

            It had taken him longer than he liked to admit to come to this point, and he still hadn't convinced his stubborn head that it was the right thing to do.  But his heart filled to see her happy, to see her beaming, to see her on the arm of the man whom Angel had to admit wasn't the same being he'd gone on raids and massacres with.  "I'm giving away the bride."

            She hadn't asked him to do it, Buffy thought as she started to cry, turning back to Spike.  But he'd volunteered, and the two halves of her heart had become whole again.  It was possible to love two men, and even three, in different ways, for different reasons.  It was possible to love three men and know that one of those three was the one to live out the rest of your life with.

            It was, of course, hard to deny when higher powers in the universe decreed it as destiny.

            "Do you, Elizabeth Anne Summers, take William Spike Angus Bryce to be your lawfully wedded husband?"  The rest of the vows were slightly muffled by the laughter spreading contagiously through the room.

            Spike heaved a sigh and shot a threatening look toward the folding chairs, but it had lost some of its effectiveness.  He'd promised not to touch a bottle of bleach at least until after the wedding, and Buffy said the glasses were sexy.  As a result, the look he gave was that of a displeased schoolmaster rather than a pissed-off, dangerous creature.

            Sometimes he missed being threatening.  Now, with everyone laughing at his middle name, was one of those times.  

            After the ceremony was over, they stood outside and kissed in the early fall sun, the falling leaves mixing with the birdseed that the eyepatched groomsman Xander was winging at them by the handful.  Spike took his time, though his days of never needing to come up for air were long gone.  It felt good to be able to kiss her in the open, in front of her friends, no secrets, no lies.  No darkness.

            Standing to the side, the best man stood with a bridesmaid, his romantic Frenchman's heart truly happy for his friend but a corner of it still longing.

            "Look at how he looks at her," Kelly said in undertones to Laramie.  "God, I'd give anything to have a man look at me like that."  She bit her tongue as soon as the words were out of her mouth.  She'd spent the last few months tripping over her feet and being completely unfocused around Laramie.  It wouldn't do any good, the college student thought, to throw herself at him.

Laramie looked down at her, the masses of curly hair pulled out of her face in deference to the day, the big, naïve eyes never quite able to meet his without bringing a blush to her cheeks.  He'd refused to be her Watcher, pleading that Buffy was doing a fine job of that.  If he was going to repeat his mistakes, he preferred not to repeat them action-for-action.  

"Kelly, _I'm_ looking at you like that," he said quietly, not waiting for the statement to register with her before he brushed his lips over hers softly.

A middle-aged, balding man stood in the back of the crowd, his cheap suit slightly worn at the elbows and knees, his eyes myopic behind the thick lenses of his glasses.  He watched the people milling around, the married couple climbing into a red convertible, the big ex-Watcher making time with the new Slayer, and he smiled.

The Hub liked to see things come full-circle.  Satisfied with the scene before him, he vanished.

~~~

            "Do you know how long it's been since I've been on a sunny beach?"  Spike's eyes crossed behind his glasses as Buffy slid her body over his, curve fitting to concavity without a centimeter of error.  She feathered her lips over his chest, delighting in the rapid heartbeat she felt under them.

            "Mmmm," she hummed in thought as she let her hands roam at will.  "It's probably been a very long time," she answered, closing her fingers over him and listening to him yelp in response.  

            "Actually," he said, struggling to speak without squeaking, "I've never been."  And what a beach it was for his first time, a small, private Floridian cove.  

             "Well, consider this initiation," Buffy said brightly, kissing him tenderly.

            "I have a confession to make, love," Spike said, running a hand through her hair and wondering how many places, precisely, he'd be trying to get sand out of later.

            "What?  Did William forget to turn in a library book back in his day?"  Buffy smothered a laugh as she pressed a hand to her mouth.  "Sorry.  You were saying."

            Spike narrowed his eyes, and Buffy could see the flicker of bad in him that she occasionally missed like crazy.  "I was saying," he said, shifting his weight, making her eyes cross this time, "That I'm afraid I don't have quite the stamina I did back when."

            Buffy laughed, linking her hands behind his head and snagging his lip between her teeth.  "Well," she said consideringly, "We'll just have to practice."

            "Agreed," Spike said, pressing his lips to her throat, feeling her life, _their_ life, rush through her in waves.  "Let's start here and now."

~*~*~*~***_THE END_~*~*~*~***


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